The Science of Perception
by Tallulah99
Summary: Two years after the fall, and Sherlock has come home to a new complication in his well-ordered existence - the shy pathologist he once trusted with his life. Can he now trust her with his heart, or is she simply a problem that needs solving? In the meantime, a rash of seemingly unrelated murders has followed Sherlock home. Who is behind them and why? Blatant, unrepentant Sherlolly.
1. Chapter 1

"There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception."― Aldous Huxley

ETA: Now with Brit-picking courtesy of the lovely allofmyheart!

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Molly Hooper was tired. Her shift should have ended ages ago.

She and Howard had practically been out of the door. Then the call had come in to expedite the toxicology reports on D.I. Brewster's John Doe. She'd taken one look at Howard's expectant face and deflated, her plans for a relaxing evening in front of the telly fading like the last of the autumn sunlight. "No, that's alright. You go on then, yeah? I'll take this one." She'd forced a pleasant smile onto her lips and shrugged back out of her coat.

"Thanks, Moll," Howard said, reaching for the door. "I'll get the next one."

She hadn't even tried pretending to herself that next time would be any different. Howard had a wife and two boys waiting for him at home while Molly had...well, Molly had Toby. She hadn't even got her scarf hung back up before the door swung shut behind Howard's rapidly retreating back. With a deep sigh, she had picked up the files and headed back into the lab.

As with anything one is asked to do after five o'clock on a Friday afternoon, the reports took ages longer than she had anticipated and it was nearly eight before she finally shoved her completed findings into an evidentiary envelope and sent it on its way. Then she headed for the locker room, ready to shed her scrubs and the scent of death that clung to her whenever she worked in the morgue. She yawned and thought fondly of a nice cuppa with Toby curled up in her lap, if he was feeling tolerant.

She was absent-mindedly debating the relative merits of a curry versus the Chinese takeaway that only delivered if she ordered two main courses when she opened the door to her locker.

Molly flicked a glance at her reflection in the mirror on the inside of the door and saw a ghost.

She jerked backwards in surprise and promptly fell over the bench, landing hard on her backside with her legs spraddled.

Well, bollocks.

A dark shape loomed over her, and Molly Hooper's first real look at Sherlock Holmes after more than two years was upside down and backwards, as viewed from her graceless position on the locker room floor. Which about summed up the entirety of their relationship right there.

He looked exactly the way she remembered him, if inverted. His skin was still as pale as porcelain and his eyes, dear God, his incredible eyes, were narrowed at her, but whether in concern or because he thought she was an idiot, she couldn't say and didn't especially want to find out. His dark hair still curled riotously across his forehead. It needed a cut, but she had always preferred it this way, tousled and untidy. It was the only thing about him that ever looked at all out of place.

She scrambled to her feet before he could offer to help her up, which he might have done given long enough to remember that he was supposed to, and then stood, more or less calmly, less than five feet from Sherlock bloody Holmes.

"So. You're back then." She flinched inwardly, feeling inane. She waited for the past two years to be stripped away, for him to raise a sardonic eyebrow and say in that bored voice of his, 'Obviously.' But he didn't. He regarded her with mild eyes, but quirked that small lopsided smile of his that he showed so rarely. The one she had not spent the past two years thinking about. Not at all.

"Yes, Molly. I'm back."

And there it was, the familiar baritone that had, for so long, been relegated to nothing but her memory and that one set of autopsy tapes she happened to be recording once while he was deducing, loudly, in the lab across the hall. She couldn't have repressed her shiver if her life depended on it.

"Oh, well, that's good then." She bobbed her head and wished she had refreshed her makeup after lunch, and then she wished that she hadn't wished it. "Um, welcome back."

A long silence settled between them. That was not unusual, or it hadn't been before, at any rate. They had spent several years working together in near silence; sharing space more than actually being 'together'. She had enjoyed those times when he came to Barts and worked alongside her in the lab even though, generally, he seemed to forget she was there altogether. This was different. This time, he clearly remembered she was there. His cat's eyes were unfathomable, boring into her as if she was some especially challenging piece of evidence that he was attempting to get to the bottom of by sheer force of his gaze.

This wasn't the grand reunion she had envisioned, when she had bothered to envision anything. But then, even when she was envisioning something profound, she had known it would be more like this. She was still plain, simple and unassuming little Molly, that no one thought much about. That she had been the one to help him fake his death in front of the entire world wouldn't much come into it as far as he was concerned. Oh, she knew he was grateful. He appreciated that she had stuck her neck out for him, but this was Sherlock, and his brain processed gratitude differently from – well, everyone. She hadn't even seriously considered that he would come and see her especially when he returned. In her more reasonable moments she had conceded that she would most likely hear about his homecoming through Lestrade. They did see each other on occasion, when their caseloads happened to intersect.

Molly tried not to squirm under his scrutiny. "So, how've you been?" Just once she wished that she could have a conversation with Sherlock without feeling like a complete and utter nit.

"Dead," he said. His face was impassive, but she had known him long enough to recognize the flicker of humour in his eyes.

She laughed, a nervous giggle that she hated the sound of in the close confines of the locker room. "Yes, well, it looks like you're much recovered."

He did smile then, a real one. And strangely, she was happy to see that he _could_ smile. There was something else in his expression that bothered her, something that, on Sherlock; she couldn't find a word for. On anyone else, she would have called it sadness.

"Um, so when did you get back? I bet John and Mrs. Hudson were happy to see you – I mean, of course they were, I just – "

"I've only just arrived on the seven o'clock train," he said, interrupting her stammering. "As to John and Mrs. Hudson's relative level of enthusiasm regarding my return, well, that remains to be seen."

Molly furrowed her brow, certain she had misheard. "You – you mean you came here first?" That couldn't be right, could it?

"Barts _is_ on the way to Baker Street," he said, unwinding his scarf. "It seemed reasonable to stop off on my way."

"Oh, of course. I see." Of course, she didn't actually.

She was a clever woman. She'd done her studies at University College and become one of the youngest pathologists in the country. She'd had several papers published in different medical journals and even had a little side column devoted to her in an issue of Pathology Quarterly. Her mum had the clipping up on the refrigerator. She still only understood what Sherlock Holmes was on about maybe half the time.

She pressed her lips together and flicked a glance up at him. He was looking at her oddly again. She wondered if she had something on her face, but resisted the urge to look in the mirror to check. "So was there something you – uh, did you need something?"

His eyes lit up as if she had asked a question to his liking. "Yes, actually."

She couldn't help her flush of disappointment. He hadn't been back ten minutes, had barely said hello even, and he was here because he needed something. Of course. Of course, how silly of her. How foolish of her to think that he was there to see _her._ He was still Sherlock. He was still – "

"I need to say thank you, Molly, and – I'm sorry."

Molly blinked. "Oh. Well that's – oh." Unexpected is what it was. It wasn't that he never said thank you or apologized. He did, occasionally, but it was rare, and it only happened when he determined that the sentiment was well-deserved. It wouldn't have surprised her at all to discover that this was the first time he had ever uttered those two things within an hour of each other, much less within the same sentence.

He'd taken off his scarf and coat and laid them aside. Now he came towards her until she had to tilt her head back to see his face. He leaned down and kissed her, softly, on her cheek, the opposite of the one he had kissed three Christmases ago. Not that she was keeping track of that sort of thing. "Thank you, Molly Hooper, for helping me die. I couldn't have done it without you."

He towered over her, his presence just a bit overwhelming, his body boxing her in against the wall of lockers at her back. She took a step back and smacked her head on the open locker door. "Oh, ouch, whoops. That was – ha ha, well, uh, I'm glad I could help." She fidgeted, rubbing the back of her head, pleased to see she hadn't added the ignominy of a bleeding scalp wound to the evening. That really would be the capper on her day.

"You saved lives, Molly," he said. "More than just mine." There was no humour in his eyes now. He was intent and focused on her face and it was, frankly, a little alarming.

"I'm glad I could help." She gave him a tight smile and then looked away. She'd been willing to do almost anything for him back then. She would have been willing to do a hell of a lot more if it meant saving his life. Making use of her ready access to a varied supply of cadavers and falsifying a few scribbles on a piece of paper were the least of it. "You don't have to apologize to me though, Sherlock. You've nothing to be sorry for."

"Oh no?" He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Are you certain?" He looked almost amused, which annoyed her no end. Usually, if Sherlock was amused, it was because someone, somewhere was being spectacularly foolish. Quite often, that someone was her.

She squinted up at him with a flash of irritation wondering what he was getting at. "Of course I'm certain. What could you have to apologize for? You did what you had to do to keep your friends safe. I understood why you did it. I still do."

"You're angry with me."

"No, I'm not. Why would I be angry? Really I'm –" And then she stopped and considered, and then, much like a long overdue volcanic eruption, all the frustration and irritation, and yes _anger_ that she'd been harbouring for the past two years came bubbling up to the surface all at once.

He was right. He was always right, dammit. She was not only angry, she was furious.

She could see him steel himself for the tirade she hadn't even realized she was about to unleash on him until she opened her mouth and it all poured out.

"But it's been more than two years! _Two years_, Sherlock! You never said it would be so long! Do you have any idea how hard that's been? And don't say you do, because you don't. It must've been hard for you – being away from your friends – and I'm sorry, but d'you know what's harder than being away? Being _here_ and having to watch your friends mourn unnecessarily! They were my friends, too, and I've had to lie straight to their faces for two years – well less than that because we don't really talk any more, do we? You were what brought us all together – me and Mrs. Hudson and John and Lestrade. We were friends because you were our friend. And then you were dead, but you weren't and I just couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand to commiserate with them and laugh over old stories the way you do when someone who's special to you dies. I couldn't do it anymore because I knew! I could just open my mouth and say 'Guess what, ducks? Clever Sherlock's gone and done it again!', but I couldn't!"

Tears like she'd not shed after his 'death' rolled down her cheeks now in fat drops. She knew they were making her look blotchy and awful, but she didn't care. She knew that Sherlock hated dealing with tears because he didn't know _how_ to deal with tears, and she didn't care about that either. Sod him, altogether. He deserved to be uncomfortable. The secret she had been honoured to share with him, honoured because he trusted her enough to share it with her, had been both a blessing and a curse. Knowing he was alive but being unable to tell anyone else had worn her down. The pain of two full years of wondering, of hiding the truth and having such a knot in her chest that she just couldn't bear to be around them anymore, of missing him, and missing them and feeling so much lonelier than she ever had before in her life because, for a while, she had been a part of something more and now that was gone.

"You never said it would be two years," she finished without looking at him. She sniffled and started fishing in the pocket of her scrubs for a tissue.

Sherlock held out a white handkerchief. "Here. Pax. And blow your nose."

She scowled and snatched the white square away from him. "Thanks."

He waited patiently while she blotted her eyes and wiped viciously at her nose. "Feel better now?"

"Yes."

And then, unexpectedly, she was wrapped in his arms. She nearly shrieked.

"I am sorry, Molly," he said. His voice was muffled against her hair.

She stood, stunned, for a moment and then finally put herself together enough to reciprocate his embrace. Tentatively, she put her arms around his waist and let herself hug him back, her cheek resting against his chest, letting herself relax into the warmth of his embrace. She was a little startled to hear the heavy thud of his heart, then felt foolish. Some pathologist she was.

"I am glad you're back, Sherlock. I've missed you." She hadn't meant to say it, but there it was. She had missed him even more than she had expected to, and that was saying rather a lot.

She could feel the rumble of his chuckle beneath her cheek more than actually hear it. "Clearly."

Molly let her arms slide free and took a step back so that she could look up at him again. "Is that why you came here first? So you could get the yelling part over with?"

"Partly that, and partly because Barts _is_, in fact, on the way to Baker Street. I rather think the 'yelling part', as you call it, has barely begun, however." He sighed. "Eventually I am going to have to tell John, and he's likely to dispense with the formalities and just shoot me." He looked aggrieved.

Molly blinked at him.

"I don't mean that literally, Molly," he said at her nonplussed expression and then narrowed his eyes in thought. "At least, most probably not. It may depend largely on whether he still makes it a habit to carry his gun with him." He retrieved his coat and scarf, still looking pensive. "How is he?"

It struck Molly suddenly that for all that she had watched John suffer terribly through the loss of his friend, and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade too, Sherlock had had to do much the same thing, but alone, facing unknown dangers based on uncertain information and with no knowledge of when he might be able to return to his old life, if ever. Right then and there, as the realisation tugged painfully at her heart, she forgave him everything.

There hadn't been much to forgive anyway, not really.

"He's alright," she said, nodding. "I mean, he wasn't at first, of course, but then – well, it's been a while, hasn't it? He got – it got better. He's okay now." She chewed at her corner of her lip. "He's met someone. Her name's Mary. I met her once. I think – I think she's been good for him. I think she's helped."

It was hard to tell how Sherlock processed this information. He wasn't looking at her, but at some point off in the distance.

She could only imagine what must be going through his mind now that it was all said and done, now that he was back in London for good, and ready to step back into his old life.

On the night of the fall, after the chaos at the hospital had died down and the emergency responders had all gone on their way, she had snuck him out of the ambulance bay and into her mother's borrowed car and driven him to Cambridge station. Then she had sat and watched him board his train with her heart in her throat. He had walked away from his old life, had left everyone and everything that meant anything to him behind and ridden off into the dark night without a backwards glance. Reversing that process was going to be the most difficult thing he had ever attempted. She wondered if he realised that yet.

"Where did you go?"

"What?" He looked up at her again, seeming startled to find her still standing there. Well, that seemed right, at least. "Oh, yes. I went to Cairo initially and then from there to Yemen. Had to kick around in Prague for a month or so and then spent quite a lot of time in Azerbaijan, of all places –".

"No, no – I meant just now," she interrupted softly, and he looked startled. "You looked like you were somewhere else altogether. You're worried – not about getting shot, of course, but you are worried how he's going to react when he sees you."

Sherlock didn't reply for a time. He had gone still, and Molly thought how very strange that state looked on him. Nervous energy always seemed to keep him bouncing on the balls of his feet, always moving or fidgeting. If he was at all bored, Sherlock was restless. He wasn't restless now.

"I have never bothered to concern myself with the opinions of others," he said at last. "But John was my friend, and he matters."

For a split second, Sherlock's face was open and unguarded, and Molly saw that her first inclination had been the right one. He was sad, and more than that, he really was worried.

"He's going to forgive you, you know." She wasn't sure how she knew that it was absolution that Sherlock craved, but somehow she was certain of it. "I mean, he's probably going to hit you first, but you deserve that, and he'll forgive you, in the end."

His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but aside from arching one dark eyebrow, he let it pass without remark.

"So what are you going to do now?" she asked. She started collecting her things from her locker, as much because she needed to look somewhere other than at him as because she actually needed to get her bag. "I mean, not _right_ now, but when you're uh - resurrected, so to speak."

"Presuming that I do not, in fact, get shot and catch up with my obituary retroactively, I will start taking cases again immediately. The website only needs a bit of brushing up. I imagine the theatre of my return will be enough to chase a few worthwhile cases out of the woodwork on the basis of my notoriety if nothing else." He grimaced at the prospect.

"I suppose you know that your name was cleared," she said as the thought occurred to her. "With the police, I mean, well, and the press too for that matter. Someone issued an inquiry into that awful Riley woman's story, and it fell apart pretty fast when they really started digging into Jim – I mean Richard Brook."

Sherlock made an amused sound. "'Someone' indeed. It's refreshing to see my brother do something useful for a change. Perhaps he does still possess some tiny sliver of familial obligation."

Confused, Molly gave him a noncommittal smile. "Well, that's nice, isn't it? Family?"

Sherlock cut a sideways glance at her. "Yes, certainly – when they're not the ones putting your life in danger in the first place."

She wrinkled her brow at him, no less confused. "Oh –"

He shook his head. "Never mind, Molly." He slid back into his coat and tossed his scarf around his neck. "Come on. I'll walk you to the train." His back ramrod straight, he stood aside and gestured for her to precede him into the corridor.

Feeling terribly off kilter, she clutched her bag to her chest and let him walk her out of the hospital.

* * *

A/N: This entire fic came about from the .005 seconds in which we see Sherlock reflected in the mirror on Molly's locker during the teaser trailer for series 3. What can I say? I have a very vivid imagination and am also Captain of the Good Ship Sherlolly. All aboard, y'all!

Much of this story is already written, so the plan is to update with a new chapter at least once a week. Constructive criticism is always welcome, especially if you feel compelled to Brit-pick, as I am, sadly, only an American with Anglo pretensions. If you merely want to lavish the reviews section with praise and/or offers of hot and cold running Cumberbatches, please feel free to do that as well!

Many, varied and heartfelt thanks to the inimitable Katie F for beta-reading the pants off of this sucker; correcting an embarrassing number of run-on sentences and punctuation errors; keeping too many 'Colonialisms' from creeping into the Baker Street vernacular; and, perhaps most importantly of all, for squeeing in all the right spots. I O U, Astro!

Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

ETA: Now with Brit-picking courtesy of the lovely allofmyheart!

* * *

**Chapter 2**

It was an odd thing, Molly thought, to be walking down the busy London street with Sherlock Holmes, the world's only resurrected consulting detective, by her side. He strode down the pavement with his familiar purposeful stride, long legs eating up the distance so that she nearly had jog to keep up with him.

Anyone else would have earned irritable looks from the oncoming pedestrians who had to change their course to avoid colliding with him as he took ownership of the centre of the pavement. But the crowds simply parted around Sherlock like the ocean around a steaming frigate. They didn't seem to notice him otherwise. Molly wondered if they would be so oblivious if he were wearing his deerstalker. She rather thought not.

Sometimes she understood Sherlock's misanthropy. He was a flash of singular brilliance in a world of muted, watery colours. He could think circles around them – all of them – but he was forced to be in the world among them, able to see the desert in a grain of sand when the rest of them couldn't make out a thing beyond the end of their own noses, and weren't interested in trying, anyway. She thought it must be a lonely life, whatever he might say.

Skipping aside to avoid colliding with a distracted businessman on his mobile, Molly took the opportunity to look up at his bold profile.

Lonely before; lonelier now.

She had known Sherlock for several years before John Watson had come along and had – not a 'humanising' effect, he still hadn't ever been _that_ – but a way of calming and refining him. Sherlock Holmes was a live wire in need of grounding, and John had been that for him – focusing his drive, guiding his energies, giving a damn. Hopefully, he would be all of those things again. Molly felt a pang in her chest and hoped that she was right about the good doctor's ability to forgive his friend.

"Well, this is me then," she said as they arrived at the stairs that led down to the Tube station. "Thanks for the escort." She smiled, pink-cheeked and breathless from scrambling to keep up with him. "Off to face your reckoning now, are you?" For no reason that she could name, she was reluctant to say goodbye to him.

"What? Oh, no." Sherlock stood with his hands clasped behind his back, the collar of his coat turned up against the brisk autumn wind. He glanced around almost as if he was unsure of where he was. Molly was certain he knew_ that_ quite well, and was instead merely deducing which of their fellow pedestrians were having beans and toast for their dinner based on which way they carried their briefcase. "No, I'm not going back to Baker Street tonight. Mrs. Hudson is out for the evening and, while John is in, he is also with his…lady friend. Not the most ideal time to come back to life, I should think."

The flicker of annoyance on Sherlock's face almost made her laugh. Gone for more than two years, returning with nary a word to anyone and still perfectly capable of being put out when people had the audacity to make inconvenient plans. She didn't even bother to ask how he knew the particulars of his friends' daily schedule given that he'd been in another country until the day before.

"Oh, well, you can stay at mine tonight, if you like. I have a bed – or rather I have _two_ beds – one for me and one for you." She gave a nervous laugh, and wished that she could kick herself for opening her mouth in the first place. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "There's a guest room, I mean. I had a flat share for a bit, but she – she got married and well, now I have an extra room. And it's, uh, got a bed – that you can use – tonight, if you like." She gave him an awkward, wobbly smile and then rushed on. "I mean, if you don't – you know – have a place, but I'm sure you do. Sorry, I just – I just thought – "

"Thank you, Molly," Sherlock said, heading her off with a short incline of his head. She could see the tension on his face as he laboriously worked out the social norms required of him in the situation. "That would do nicely."

"It would?" It took a long moment for her to realise he had accepted her offer. She covered her discomfiture with a cheerful smile. "Oh, right, well, that sounds – good. Off we go then!" She turned toward the steps to the Tube station, making incredulous faces to herself until she realised he could see her in the reflective surface of the advert stands. She desisted with a wince.

The train ride was largely a quiet one. Sherlock seemed introspective, but it was difficult to know what was really going on behind those icy blue-green eyes. He watched out the windows as London flashed past them in a dark and light-streaked blur. Had he missed the city? Had he missed his friends? Could Sherlock _miss_? Was even that too emotional of an entanglement for him? He was as much a mystery now as he had ever been; more so, even. So much could happen in the course of two years...well, to other people, anyway. Not much had happened to Molly during that time, but then nothing much ever did.

Two years ago she had been getting up, catching the train, doing her shift at Barts and then coming home to an empty flat. Two years from now, she imagined she would be doing much the same thing. How had so much time gone by with no appreciable difference in her life? She had the sudden flash of her life, twenty years from now - getting up from the same bed, getting on the same train and going to the same job - and then, for just a split second, she hated it. Hated the monotony, hated the unending sameness of it all.

And then she looked up and saw Sherlock watching her, and a smile spread across her face just as the train pulled into her station.

Molly jogged up two flights of stairs with Sherlock on her heels like an overgrown puppy. She wished pointlessly that she had time to dash in and tidy up before she let him in, but she merely took a deep breath and pushed through the door, careful to block the gap with her body until she could ascertain that Toby wasn't waiting to dash between her legs and escape out into the corridor, again.

"Alright then," she said, attempting to be airy. "Here's mine." She dropped her bag on the side table and darted a quick look around the room, wondering what he would deduce from the comfortable chaos of her flat. She was tidy by nature, but, with only herself to please and no one to say otherwise, her furnishings were a diverse hodgepodge of pieces that had struck her fancy regardless of how they tied in with the rest of the room. She knew it gave the room a messy, slapdash air, but she liked it. It felt cosy – lived in. Posh as Sherlock's flat had been under all the mess, she had no doubt that he would hate her eclectic disorder.

"Oh, I forgot –" She seized her leftover breakfast dishes and darted into the tiny kitchen with them, absurdly embarrassed for Sherlock to see the dried-up eggs and toast she had wolfed down on her way out the door that morning.

When she came back into the sitting area, Sherlock had removed his coat and was on her sofa with his fingers tented and pressed against his lips, sitting nose to nose with her cat. Toby stood on the coffee table, leaning forward in order to better examine their guest. Sherlock was, of course, examining him right back.

"I've met your flatmate," he said without looking up. Toby's tail swished back and forth in curiosity and then, with one last flick, he turned his nose up in dismissal and leapt silently to the floor.

"He owns the place. I just live here," Molly said with an affectionate smile at Toby's retreating back.

"It's good that you have company."

It was a very un-Sherlock-like thing to say, and Molly gave him a puzzled look, which he did not appear to notice. She wondered suddenly what had happened to him in the past two years. How much had he seen? How much had he faced on his own?

"Um, it is," she said. "It's nice to have someone to talk to." She gestured awkwardly down the hallway with her thumb. "Do you want me to show you the room?"

Molly always felt diminutive around Sherlock, physically, intellectually or otherwise. Just now she felt very small indeed as she led him the few steps down the narrow hallway to the second bedroom. He took up a lot of space

She nudged the door open and stood out of the way.

He seemed larger than usual in the small confines of the room. It was almost ridiculous to think of him tucked underneath her old flower sprigged duvet, the coiled-spring of his body relaxed finally in the abandonment of sleep. With a massive force of will, she managed to push that mental picture out of her head.

"Sorry, it's not much, but it should do you for one night anyway. The reprieve before the storm and all that." She laughed.

He gave her a puzzled look and she stuttered. "Oh, I just meant – sorry –"

"No, no. It's fine. It's more than sufficient." He turned restlessly in the enclosed space and then stilled abruptly and took a deep breath. "Thank you, Molly," he said. She could see the effort it took for him to look her in the eye. "You've always been so much kinder to me than I deserve."

She blinked at him, completely at a loss. "Tea!" she blurted at last and then blushed. "Sorry, I mean I'm going to put the kettle on. Would you like some?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned and headed back to the kitchen, wondering if she would ever feel completely at ease in that man's presence.

The familiar steps of putting the kettle on to boil were soothing. She had regained her equanimity, however temporarily, by the time Sherlock rejoined her. It was only a matter of time before he knocked her sideways again, but she would enjoy the reprieve while she could.

"You don't have any luggage, do you?" she asked.

"No," he said without looking at her. He was examining the interior of her kitchen with the same deceptively mild curiosity that he applied to every situation, no doubt catalouging the truly pitiful number of ready-meal containers that were stacked up in the bin or the nearly empty white squares on the American Short-hair calendar that hung slightly askew on the side of her fridge. "There was nothing I felt compelled to bring home with me directly. I had a few things shipped, but they won't be arriving for several days."

Molly nodded in understanding, but inwardly shook her head in wonder that a grown man wouldn't think to pack an overnight bag. "Right. Well, I have a spare toothbrush that's yours if you want it. I'm afraid I haven't anything to offer you in the way of pyjamas." She was blushing furiously, but he seemed not to notice.

"Not a problem. I rarely sleep clothed." Having presumably concluded his assessment of her kitchen, if not the entirety of her life since had last seen her, he rounded on her with an expectant look. "Now, what about dinner?"

Later, after their orders of beef with broccoli and Szechuan chicken had been reduced to empty, sauce-splattered tins, Molly sat cross-legged on the floor, wrapped in her least ratty dressing gown, with her final cup of tea for the night, and eyed Sherlock speculatively over the rim of her cup.

"What?" he asked, crossly. "Why are you goggling at me like that? Do I have something on my face?"

"I just don't think I've ever seen you eat so much at one time. You must've been famished." She cocked her head to the side and examined him for a change, noting the way his shirt hung looser on his shoulders and his even more prominent than usual cheekbones. "You've lost quite a lot of weight, haven't you? You haven't been eating well." She wasn't sure why, knowing his habits, but she felt her heart clench, all the same.

"Oh, excellent deduction, Doctor Hooper; gold star." Sherlock rolled his eyes in barely suppressed annoyance. "You know I never eat much when I'm on a case."

"No, but this wasn't just a case, was it? This was a mission." She narrowed her eyes and studied his face, refusing to flinch even when he furrowed his brow and glared at her. "You've been living hard altogether. It's not just the eating. You haven't been sleeping either. And you've been in danger – a lot of danger." Without thinking she reached up to touch the fading bruise that wasn't quite concealed by the dark sweep of his hair. He jerked backwards and she let her hand drop with a shake of her head, unable to push away the pained sympathy in her eyes even though she knew he wouldn't appreciate it. "Was it as important as all that? Moriarty – Jim was already dead."

"But his syndicate was alive and kicking." Sherlock stood abruptly and moved restively around the tight space. "Cut off the head and the body will die, but Moriarty wasn't the head of anything. He was a cancer, a disseminated idea that grew and spread and reached malevolent fingers into a hundred different dark places. His network suffered when he died. They retreated, but not to lick their wounds and scatter like rats. Oh no, they withdrew to regroup, to gain a firmer foothold, to bide their time until the moment was right to re-launch their enterprise, only this time, without Moriarty's failings."

Molly watched Sherlock pace furiously. "His failings?

He gave an unpleasant laugh. "Oh, certainly. James Moriarty was a genius. He was shrewd and cunning and brilliant and his moral compass didn't exactly point north – there would have been _nothing_ to stop him. He could have toppled world governments if he'd wanted to, but he was _bored_ and that was his downfall. That was why he came after me particularly, the challenge, the high of finding a worthy adversary to pit himself against. What fun is it to defeat an opponent when you already know that his skill is below yours? Moriarty was willing to lose, to _die_, just to find the one person in the whole world who could outthink him."

"And he did. He found you."

Sherlock stopped in his pacing and gave Molly a searching look. "Yes. Yes, he found me." His gaze lingered on her for a moment, shrewd eyes narrowed in scrutiny. "But that was his downfall – the game. He simply couldn't resist the desire to play. The players he left behind have no such compunction." A fierce gleam shone in his eyes and his loose fingers curled into fists. "_Had_."

Molly was almost taken aback by the intensity on his face. She had seen him focused and intense, determined and even, on a very few occasions, actually angry. This was something entirely new, and not just a little bit terrifying, to behold.

He saw her expression and softened, relaxing the rigidity in his posture with visible effort. "It doesn't matter anymore. It's over now. It's done." He dropped back onto the sofa and steepled his fingers in thoughtful contemplation. "The organization that Jim Moriarty left to carry on after his death is destroyed, the pieces are scattered." His voice dropped an octave. "_I won_."

Molly hesitated for a second and then pushed to her feet and bridged the distance between them before she could think twice and change her mind. He looked up with a puzzled frown and drew back, but she was determined. With shaking fingers, she leaned forward, brushing the curly hair from his forehead, and pressed a gentle kiss beside the dark smudge on his otherwise flawless brow. She felt him startle beneath her touch, but she lingered for a moment and whispered. "Thank you, Sherlock. I – thank you."

Embarrassed by her own effrontery, she turned then and gathered up the tea things without looking back at his surprised face. "I'm just off to bed then, alright?" she called over her shoulder, anxious to put some distance between herself and that moment of temporary insanity. "Let me know if you need anything!"

She closed the door to her bedroom and leaned against it, feeling foolish. And then she smiled, if ruefully. It certainly hadn't taken long for her and Sherlock to fall right back into their usual routine – him acting all mysterious and enigmatic and her acting like a fool. Some things, she decided, would never change. She sighed and started getting ready for bed.

* * *

A/N: Thanks so much to those of you who took the time to stop and review the first chapter. Your kind words are much appreciated and gratefully received. I will always respond to registered comments, but some days that will happen more quickly than others. Concrit is, as always, welcomed and encouraged; Brit-picking is coveted and Cumberbatches will be given fierce cuddles.

My continuing thanks to the lovely and talented Katie F for schooling me on all things grammatical and teaching me to, at last, recognize a run-on sentence - most of the time, at least. I genuflect in your general direction.

Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Sherlock sat for some time on the edge of the sofa in Molly's ridiculous jumble of a sitting room, just as she had left him, staring pensively off into space. He was trying hard not to think about the warm press of her lips against his forehead. Trying _not_ to think was a unique exercise.

This day had not gone at all the way he had originally envisioned it.

To start with, he'd had to leave Ashgabat in more of a hurry than he had intended. Having his disreputable back alley lodgings firebombed the night before his anticipated departure had, most decidedly, not been on the agenda.

It had been a small mercy that one of his invaluable, and justifiably well-paid, street urchins had come and dragged him away mere moments before the bomb detonated. The concussion from the explosion had been sufficient to knock them both to the ground even fifteen yards away from the site of the blast. It hadn't been an amateur attempt, and he was thankful to have walked away from it.

He'd been intending to leave on the train later the next day at any rate. Moving his plans up by twelve hours hadn't seemed like such a drastic reconsideration given the possible alternative - that Hanchik Babayev's men would take a more hands-on approach to eliminating him as a perceived threat and would simply slit his throat as he walked the streets.

The adjustment to his schedule, while beneficial in that it allowed him to keep his head firmly attached to his shoulders, right where he liked it, had affected the timing of his return trip. He'd arrived back in London at seven that evening rather than seven the following morning, as he had originally planned. It was a minor consideration, all things told, but it was a bump in the road to his return to the land of the living.

Oh, Mycroft would know he was back, of course. His brother, who seemed to have eyes and ears reporting back to him from every corner of the globe, had no doubt been informed of Sherlock's continued good health within seventy-two hours of his 'suicide'. At least, that was how long it had taken for him to first notice the extra sets of eyes that followed him with much less discretion than Mycroft would probably have preferred. They had not interfered with his plans, however, so he had done what he always did when Mycroft chose to play his little spy games - he had ignored them.

Revealing his continued good health to John was going to require rather more thought and a great bit more delicacy. He may not have understood the need for it, but he did understand that the fallout would be far greater without it. People were so unfathomably sensitive about being fed a lie, any lie, even if it was for their own good.

He had reestablished contact with his homeless network a few weeks earlier, as his infiltration of Moriarty's extended web of operatives was winding to a close, and he had them apprise him of the situations of those he had left behind.

He was fully prepared to approach John and to take whatever abuse his friend felt it necessary to mete out upon learning of his deception, but not at the Baker Street flat – not on home territory. Sherlock might not fully comprehend emotional dynamics, but he needn't be a skilled student of the human condition to know that he would stand on unacceptably uneven ground if were simply to show up on the front doorstep. And that wasn't to mention the distinct possibility that John might just slam the door in his face and have done with it. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes' deductive reasoning to figure out that the good doctor was going to be very, very angry with him.

Dinner reservations, Ernie had reported back. Doctor John Watson had dinner reservations for two at The Faircot for eight o'clock on the evening of August the third. It was perfect. It was public, it was posh, and John was much less likely to resort to physical violence in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Sherlock considered his chances of being shot almost negligible under those circumstances. Given time to adjust to the idea, he was certain that John would be _glad_ that he was still alive; he just needed to ensure that his friend had the chance to adjust before he had the chance to commit an act of grievous bodily harm.

His early return hadn't affected his determination to approach John as originally intended, but it did leave him with a sizable gap in his schedule and nowhere to go in the interim.

The bomb at his apartment had destroyed what few belongings he had accumulated. He had taken to keeping his falsified passport on him at all times, but aside from that and the little cash that he'd already had on him, in the form of Turkmen manat, he had absolutely nothing else to his name. He was homeless, nameless and as good as penniless when his train arrived back in London. Hardly an auspicious homecoming.

He could have gone to Mycroft, of course, but he would almost prefer to bed down with the rest of the itinerants to avoid having to put up with his brother's smug condescension. He would have to kowtow to him soon enough if he wanted to bring Sherlock Holmes back to life with a minimum of fuss, but that wasn't an important consideration just now. He had been dead for more than two years; another day or two among the deceased was no additional hardship.

When the Tube had pulled into the Liverpool Street station, he had disembarked, dazed from hours of travel, exhausted, hungry, and hurting, and he had merely followed wherever his feet had chosen to take him.

He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about fetching up in Molly Hooper's spare bedroom.

He supposed there was an appealing sort of symmetry to having the first person he encountered upon his return also be the same as the last person he had seen upon his departure. It had been Molly's pale, earnest face, lit from above by the unflattering flicker of the fluorescent station lights, that had been his last memory of England for more than two years.

It was mousey little Molly Hooper, whom Jim Moriarty had so underestimated – the shy and quiet pathologist with an unexpected titanium streak that ran through her petite frame. She had helped him die, and saved his life, all in the course of one extremely complicated afternoon.

"Fake my death," he had said, and she hadn't even flinched.

"What do you need me to do?" she had replied, those warm brown eyes trained unwaveringly on his own.

"Falsify the post-mortem reports," he had demanded, knowing full well what that would mean for her career should she get caught out.

No hesitation. "What else?'"

"Miss me," he had almost said then, but managed to stop himself. She was the only one who would know about him, the only person left in all the world to _miss_ Sherlock Holmes rather than mourn him. They were much the same, really, but for that little hook that tethered him to his old life and served to draw him back home again when his _mission_, as she termed it, was complete.

It was the difference between being able to let go of the trailing threads of his prior existence and disappearing for good, or stooping to pick them back up and going on from where he had left off. He couldn't go out and lose himself in the world if Molly Hooper was back in London missing him and waiting for him to come home.

And now, here he sat, all alone in her tiny sitting room – which was just as odd a juxtaposition of unrelated things as was Molly herself. A heavy antique chair with thick brocade upholstery sat at an angle to the sleek, stylized sofa he was sitting on, neither of which looked like they belonged in the same building as the rustic wooden coffee table. Several mass-market paperback romances were stacked neatly on a side table right next to _Case Studies in Hematology and Coagulation_ and the latest edition of _The Journal of Pathology_. He would have called it 'eclectic' if he was feeling generous, which he rarely was. It was ghastly either way.

The thin strip of light beneath Molly's bedroom door went dark, and he twitched a lopsided smile. Poor Molly. He did hope she could overcome her chagrin before he saw her in the morning. She was always more wide-eyed and off balance when she was embarrassed.

He waited a few minutes to ensure that she wouldn't suddenly remember some pressing need and come barreling back out of her room, and then he unfolded himself from the sofa. He was in truly desperate need of a shower.

He grimaced at the frilly yellow and blue décor in the bathroom and raised an eyebrow at the jovial rubber duck that sat on the edge of the tub amongst the collection of soaps and scrubs and overpriced bottles of skin and hair care products that Molly was continually disappointed in but too thrifty to discard.

He shrugged carefully out of his shirt and examined himself critically in the mirror over the sink. Most of the wounds on his chest were superficial; they hadn't bled much to begin with. The bruises would be impressive once they had fully developed, but overall there wasn't anything there that needed further attention.

His back was a different story.

By craning his head and using Molly's hand-held mirror to check the awkward angles, Sherlock was able to peel away the hastily-applied bandages and inspect the damage with a clinical eye. Three deep lacerations could probably have done with a round of stitches, but they weren't life threatening. Mihail had picked out the bits of debris and washed the deeper cuts with antiseptic, but they were going to need to be cleaned and re-dressed. He thought he could just manage to avoid an inconvenient trip to hospital, but it was going to be a hell of a thing to get at them without help. He briefly considered waking Molly, but, for all that she was a pathologist and well used to blood and gore, he wasn't in the mood to deal with the emotional fallout that was sure to follow. Nor did he have any desire to explain to her just why it was that someone had needed to pick bomb fragments from his back_ after_ he had taken down Moriarty's network.

He scowled at his reflection. It was absurd that he had personal relationships with at least three fully-qualified medical doctors but wasn't in a position to have a single one of them assist him. He wrenched the bathtap on with more force than may have been strictly necessary and stripped out of the rest of his rumpled clothes.

Sherlock couldn't remember the last time he had taken an actual shower, or even been clean all over at once, for that matter. Rough living had meant doing what he could with a basin of water and a flannel, when time and circumstances permitted, which hadn't been terribly often. He had done a more thorough job in the cramped confines of the loo aboard the train, wiping away the worst of the grime with actual soap and water from the tap, until he, at least, wasn't as likely to be mistaken for one of his own homeless network and cited for vagrancy.

Stepping into the steaming water that poured into Molly's shower was exquisitely painful. He hissed as the spray hit the raw, torn skin on his back, and then stood with his face tilted up and his eyes closed as the hot water sluiced over his body. Indoor plumbing was a distinctly underrated luxury.

He chose the least offensive of Molly's many soaps and shampoos and scrubbed himself hard under the scalding water until his entire body was pink and tingling.

If he could have taken a step back and examined himself with his usual critical eye, he might have acknowledged the symbolism behind this aggressive self-abuse.

More than twenty-seven months ago, Sherlock Holmes had plunged to his death from the roof of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and in his place, Joseph Bell, lately of Edinburgh, Scotland, had been born. For more than two years he had walked through foul and dark places wearing another man's skin, and the time had finally come to shed it. Sherlock Holmes must be born anew.

By the time he stepped out of the shower, completely clean for the first time in months, exhaustion had begun to pluck at him with insistent fingers. His hands felt large and clumsy and they refused to cooperate. He cursed under his breath when his sore muscles registered their discontent as he contorted his upper body to redress the wounds on his back.

He blamed Molly.

If she were not so inconveniently tender-hearted – if she would not takes his injuries so _personally_ – he could have asked her to dress them for him and been done with it. He could have avoided all this ridiculous twisting and pulling and had the thing done properly, by a doctor.

Feeling uncharitable towards his hostess, Sherlock dropped his towel on the tile floor and sauntered across the hallway in his altogether, half hoping she _would_ awaken, if only so he could embarrass her further. She didn't though, and he scowled and banged his door closed behind him.

* * *

A/N: Thank you so much for all of your kind reviews! I cannot tell you how encouraging it is to get such lovely messages from you all. I am tickled that you have taken the time to read my little bit of self-indulgence and I am touched that you would take the time to comment. I do try to respond to each one, but be patient with me, life can be very life-like sometimes:).

As ever, my insufficient thanks to Katie F for getting her beta on even when there are significantly more important things in need of her attention, and also a warm welcome and grateful nod to allofmyheart, who has been so kind as to offer her mad Brit-picking skillz to lend an otherwise undeserved air of credibility to my happy little corner in the Sherlolly universe. Please allow me to highly recommend her excellent Sherlock fic _The Visitor_ here on ffnet, because there aren't nearly enough stories out there about Sherlock and a stray cat.

Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Molly woke with a start.

She couldn't tell what it was that had awakened her, but the rush of adrenaline hit her like a train. She shot upright in bed with her sheet clutched to her chest, listening hard.

There was no light shining beneath her door, and the only noises she could hear were the regular nighttime sounds of London that drifted up to her window from the street below. Her alarm clock read two thirty-seven.

Several long moments passed as she sat frozen in the dark, her mind racing through any number of horrible possibilities. And then it dawned on her who the usual culprit was for strange noises going on in the flat during the wee small hours of the night.

_Toby_ she thought, and gave a mental eye roll. She didn't usually sleep with her door closed. If he were unable to nose the door open and curl up by her feet, he would make a nuisance of himself – knocking books off of the table in the sitting room and the like – to register his discontent. Wretched cat.

She sighed and swung her bare legs over the side of the bed, tugging her nightshirt down over her thighs as she padded barefoot across the room and stuck her head out the door.

The flat was dark and quiet. There was no sign of an irritable Toby, or a moody consulting detective, either, for that matter. The door to Deana's old room was closed and the light was off. Sherlock must have finally taken himself off to bed. Good, he had looked like he needed the sleep.

She pulled her head back in and closed the door without letting it latch. That should be sufficient to let the silly old thing worm his way into her room if he so chose. She certainly wasn't going to leave the door hanging wide open for Sherlock to take a quick nose around when he woke up in the morning.

She turned to go back to her bed, and then she heard the sound that had woken her. It was a deep and eerie moan like nothing she had ever heard before.

The hairs on the back of Molly's neck stood on end. She would never mistake that voice for anyone else's, but she could hardly reconcile it with the nearly inhuman sound that rose like the cry of a wounded animal.

It was Sherlock.

She was in the hallway, throwing open the door to the spare room before she even realized she was moving.

She didn't have the presence of mind to reach for the light as she stumbled into the room, but the ambient glow of the street-lamps outside was enough to convince her that he was in no immediate danger, physically, at least.

He was dreaming.

He was on his back, the sheets tangled around his body as he thrashed miserably in his sleep. His chest gleamed white in the indistinct light from the window, but his face was a map of shadows, the hollows under his fluttering eyes were dark and bruised in the indistinct light.

"Sherlock?" she said, and chewed her lower lip. She wasn't sure what to do. Should she wake him? Surely he would want her to. The sounds that tore from his throat were guttural and tortured and made chills crawl down her spine. She couldn't begin to imagine what kind of a nightmare it must take to terrify Sherlock Holmes.

Another gut-wrenching cry rent the room and Sherlock's body convulsed as if in pain. Molly's mind was made up for her.

"Sherlock," she said, louder. She reached for him with unsteady hands, leaning over to touch his shoulder. "Sherlock, you have to wake up. You're having a nightmare. Sher -"

There was a disorienting flurry of movement and then she was being jerked off her feet and thrown down, hard, on the bed. The dark shape of Sherlock Holmes loomed over her, his heavy body pinning her down, his forearm painful across her throat, forcing her down into the mattress.

His eyes were open, but there was no flicker of intelligence behind them.

"Sherlock!" she choked out as the pressure of his weight restricted her breathing. "Please!"

His face was twisted into an unfamiliar snarl, his eyes narrowed in violence.

Spots danced in front of Molly's eyes, and she was struck by the sudden overwhelming certainty that Sherlock Holmes was going to kill her in his sleep. She shoved hard against his chest, but she might as well have been pushing against a stone wall. He was as solid and muscled as a jungle cat.

"Sherlock!" Her gasp was barely a whisper now. Her lungs were screaming for oxygen, and blackness began to creep into her vision. She bucked underneath him, trying desperately to shake him loose, but to no avail. Without thinking, she reached for him again. Her hands were pale in the gloom, floating up as if of their own accord, and then her fingers gently cupped his cheek, her palm cool against his heated skin. "It's alright," she wheezed, almost silently now.

Just as her vision clouded over, she saw a flash of confusion appear on Sherlock's face. Suddenly the weight was gone and she was on the floor, coughing and wheezing, with tears streaming down her face.

"God, Molly!" The anguish in his voice was raw and desperate. "Are you alright? For God's sake, say you're alright!"

Then he was there on the floor next to her, gently prying her hands away from her throat, examining her with fierce concentration. He paused long enough to reach up and switch on the table lamp and she winced in the sudden glare. He took her face between his hands and turned her chin this way and that, checking for damage.

"I'm f-fine, Sherlock," she managed to gasp. She put her hands over his, forcing him to stop and look at her. "I'm okay. It's okay." Her voice was raspy and her throat felt bruised and ragged, but, in her own medical opinion, she was going to be fine. No permanent harm done.

She wasn't entirely sure the same could be said of Sherlock.

He was wild-eyed, his shaggy curls sweat-soaked and sticking to his pale brow. "I nearly - God, Molly. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." His long fingers lightly touched the livid red marks on her throat as if he might try to brush them away. Then he pushed to his feet and stalked away to the other side of the room.

Molly noted with dazed bemusement that whatever he might have said in hopes of throwing her off balance, Sherlock slept in his boxers. She was embarrassed to have noticed at such a time, but then she supposed it beat thinking about how close she had come to being accidentally murdered in her own guest bedroom.

She could see his profile lit up by the street lights below as he stood at the window. He was frowning down at the world with a distant expression. She massaged her tender throat and wondered what things he must have seen in the past two years to make him have such violent dreams.

"What is your pulse?" he asked abruptly, without turning.

"My - "

He flashed an irritated look at her. "Your pulse! Your pulse! That thing you get when you press your fingers to your wrist and count. What is it?" He strode back across the room and dropped down on one knee next to her. "Never mind, I'll do it. Hold still."

Meekly, Molly sat on the floor, chewing her lip and wishing her nightshirt was longer. Sherlock's head was bent over her wrist, his warm fingers pressing against her pulse point. She wondered if he remembered that he was almost entirely naked.

"One ten," he said, when he finally released her. "A bit fast, but not excessive. That's to be expected, of course." He leaned forward until his nose was practically touching hers and looked into each of her eyes. "No signs of petechiae. You're hoarse, but I doubt your vocal cords have been compromised. Can you swallow?"

"Sherlock - "

"Can. You. Swallow." His eyes were narrowed, his expression stormy.

"_Yes_. Now will you stop?" She pulled away from him, and stood awkwardly, trying to give the impression that she had no legs beneath the nightshirt that she had now decided was far too short for her. "Really, Sherlock, I'm fine. I _am_ a doctor, you know."

"Pathologist," he said, dismissively.

"Doctor," she said, glowering back at him.

"Yes, well you will forgive me if I choose to be thorough, _Doctor_ Hooper." He was on his feet again, moving in agitated circles.

Molly's eyes widened when he turned away and she got a glimpse of the dressings on his back. The struggle had taken a toll on his slapdash self-doctoring, and red blooms were beginning to stain the snowy dressings. "Sherlock, what's happened to your back?" She started towards him, her brow furrowed in concern.

He froze and turned, backing away from her. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about it?" She gave him an incredulous look. "And your chest, too! Sherlock, you look like someone's tried to end you with a cheese grater. What happened?"

"It doesn't matter now," he said, still backing away. "It's not important. Go away."

She rolled her eyes and gave him a long-suffering look. "I'm not going to go away. You're hurt. Turn around and let me see, for heaven's sake. You're bleeding, I'm a doctor; it's a match made in heaven."

"Pathologist," he said, sullenly, but he relented with a scowl and turned around so she could better examine his injuries.

Looking more closely, Molly saw that the damage wasn't as bad as she had first thought. It was bad enough, though. His pale back and shoulders were streaked with irregularly-shaped patches of missing skin that were still a raw and angry red. Once she had removed the dressings, she found four more serious lacerations that were probably deep enough to need stitches. She didn't bother to suggest it to him, however. They were ugly, but they looked clean. The drainage was clear, and there were no signs of infection. There was also no sign of granulation in any of the wounds yet, which meant that they couldn't be more than a day or two old. They hadn't even begun to form scabs. Sometime in the past couple of days, Sherlock had come entirely too close to getting himself killed. She swallowed heavily.

Without a word, she left him and went to get the first aid kit from the bathroom. She raised an eyebrow at the damp towel lying on the floor and the jumble of wrappers in the sink. Any other time she might have been annoyed by his casual disregard for her things, but tonight, she merely picked the towel up off the floor and hung it over the shower curtain with surprisingly steady hands.

_This_, she thought, was the hell of caring about Sherlock Holmes. You could never know when he would be too reckless or too focused, when the current case or sheer boredom would tilt him just far enough over the edge that he would fall over the other side. She wondered, as she often had over the past few years, whether it was worth it, whether _he_ was worth it. Was it even possible that he could be worth the pain and aggravation of keeping him in her life? She came to the same conclusion she always did when the thought crossed her mind - it didn't matter whether he was or not. Her heart had its reasons, unreasonable as they were. It wasn't a choice. It wasn't a decision. It was an imperative. Her admiration for his mind, the sharp intellect behind the cutting wit and the occasional fleeting glimpse of vulnerability that showed through, despite his best efforts, made it impossible for her to not care for him.

With an odd sort of reverence, she laid a hand on the towel and breathed a word of thanks, grateful that he was still there to leave the mess. She reached for the first-aid kit that he had, naturally, left open on the floor and went back to her recalcitrant patient.

* * *

A/N: I know it's a fairly short chapter this time. I will try to make up for it by posting chapter 5 mid-week rather than making y'all wait until next Monday.

To all of you beauties who take the time to stop and leave a review - thank you! It means the world to me! As ever, I will try to respond individually as time permits!

If you are at all impressed by the readability, properly applied grammar and punctuation, or appropriately used British vernacular, please know that all thanks belong to Katie F and allofmyheart. Bless their generous hearts as they so patiently slog through my nearly unreadable nonsense in order to red-pen it into submission. *I* enjoy reading this more after they get their talented hands on it first!

Thanks so much for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"Were you ever planning on telling me what happened to you?" she asked, as she taped the last of the dressings in place. She had cleaned and dressed his wounds with quick, professional competence. Now that she was done, she felt completely justified in letting herself shake like a leaf.

"No," he said, glancing back over his shoulder as if assessing her work. Satisfied, he shrugged. "There didn't seem to be any point."

"Well, you wouldn't think so, would you?" she said, more sharply than she had intended. "No, sorry. I'm just - " She shook her head and then pinched the bridge of her nose. She was tired. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt this tired and wrung out - probably the last time she had got caught up in a case with Sherlock, come to think of it.

He looked up at her with puzzled eyes. "Why would you have wanted to know? You're uncomfortable dealing with violent physical injury." He gave her what she could only think of as a very Sherlock look. "Interesting that you exhibit no such squeamishness when the injured person is deceased."

She drew herself up. She hated it when he looked at her with those calculating eyes, like she was a problem, not a person. "You think you've got me all worked out, do you?"

"Pain, Molly Hooper. You cannot stand to see another living thing in pain."

It was even more infuriating when he was able to strip her down to her component parts like that, and, damn him, he was almost always right. She pressed her lips together and looked away with a shrug. "Pathologist."

"Doctor," he said, giving her a crooked smile over his shoulder.

She managed a brief smile of her own. "You're wrong though. About me, I mean. Of course I would want to know if you got hurt, especially if there's anything I can do to help. You're my friend."

"I am?" He twisted around in surprise. "Am I?"

She laughed out loud. "Well, I have helped you fake your death and then let you stay at my flat, and now I'm sitting here in my pyjamas at three in the morning, putting you back together again. So you're definitely...something."

She stood and handed him his shirt with her eyes averted. Now that she had finished patching him up, she was uncomfortable being in the narrow confines of the room with him in such a state of undress. She'd never been around Sherlock when he was anything other than posh and buttoned up. Somehow he seemed more undressed than any other man would have.

He slid his arms into the shirt, but left it hanging unbuttoned. Molly half expected him to wander out of the room while she tidied up, but instead he sat back down on the bed next to her with his elbows on his knees, his gaze distant. She busied herself with packing up the first aid kit, focusing on the little tasks to push past her weariness and the flat-out strangeness of the night.

"It was a bomb."

The roll of bandages slipped out of Molly's suddenly nerveless fingers and rolled across the floor. "A bomb." She tried the word on, waiting for it to make sense.

"Yes. I'd say probably five pounds of C4 given the blast radius. I can't say for sure, of course, as I thought it prudent to vacate the scene rather than stick around for the inevitable pantomime of absurdity that passes for a police investigation in that benighted region of Turkmenistan."

She let out a shaky breath. "A bomb."

"I just said so, yes." She might have imagined the flicker of impatience that crossed his face, but she doubted it.

"Was it, I don't know, 'aimed' at you?" She winced inwardly. It was such an odd question to have to ask. But really, this whole conversation was one that could only take place in the middle of the night when all parties involved were sleep deprived.

"Rather hard to aim a bomb, but I take your meaning. Yes, I believe it was."

"So there are still people from Jim - I mean, Moriarty's network that are trying to kill you?" Her chest felt tight. She had never felt any reason to fear 'Jim from IT', but the simple fact that she had not been afraid of him frightened her in and of itself.

Sherlock cast a sideways glance at her. "Oh, is that what concerns you?" He shook his head. "No, this was someone else altogether. Babayev was one of Moriarty's...I suppose you'd call him 'competitors'. He became aware of my activities there at the end and was probably concerned that I would turn my attentions to his organization next." He shrugged. "The bombing was misguided and unnecessary. I had no interest in him or his people."

"Oh." Molly blinked at his easy disregard. "So, aren't you, I don't know, worried that he might find you again, maybe? Here? In London?"

"What? Oh, no, not at all." Sherlock flipped a hand dismissively. "Babayev has never heard of Sherlock Holmes. He knew me only as Joseph Bell of Scotland. I took pains to ensure that no one would be able to make the connection between myself and that alias. He'd have no reason to come looking for me here. While I have no doubt that he intended for me to die in the bombing, I imagine he was happy to settle for chasing me out of town, which, as far as he knows, is exactly what he did."

"I see." She really didn't. "Well, I'm glad you didn't get blown up...um, worse."

She rescued the roll of bandages from the floor and slowly wound the tail end of it back into a neat circle. Her thoughts had wandered nearly three thousand miles away, dwelling irresistibly on what hadn't happened, but could have; imagining a scenario where Sherlock Holmes hadn't moved quite as quickly as he had needed to.

"How is your throat?" He asked, very carefully not looking at her. She recognized this as Sherlock's way of not so subtly letting her know that he had finished with this particular line of conversation. No amount of persistence on her part would compel him to share anything else unless he decided he wanted to.

"Oh, it's fine. Well, no, I mean, it's not _fine_, but it will be - uh, fine that is… It's really okay, Sherlock." And it was. It was sore, and there were going to be some truly spectacular bruises that she didn't relish trying to explain away, but other than that, there was no real damage done.

He was frowning, but not at her. For a long moment they sat side by side on the bed in silence, watching the occasional flare of car headlights going by on the road below. It was an odd comfort to see proof that they were not the only two souls awake in the city.

It was nearly four in the morning. Molly stifled a yawn and started to think about going back to bed. It was alright for Sherlock, who had always seemed able to replace the need for sleep with caffeine, but the rest of the human population, herself included, actually required rest. At least tomorrow was Saturday. A lie-in would definitely be in order after a night like this.

"It's Moriarty," he said suddenly. "It's always Moriarty."

"What?" She couldn't help the surge of adrenaline that shot through her veins like an electrical current even though she knew, better than anyone, that James Moriarty was really, well and truly dead. She'd sat in on the post-mortem herself, just to be sure. For Sherlock's sake.

"He is dead, but I cannot exorcise him from my mind." His tone was savage. He pressed his two fingers hard to the side of his head, like a gun. "He is still up here, even now."

"Oh," she said as the meaning of his words clicked into place. "Your, uh - the dream you were having."

Sherlock gave a curt nod. "Two years ago, I watched James Moriarty put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. I watched him die, and yet, he outlived me. It is far too poetic an epigram to say that he 'haunts' me, but it's not entirely inaccurate either." His face was pale and haggard. Emotional disclosure was supposed to be healthy, beneficial even. It didn't seem to have quite the same effect on Sherlock. No wonder he opened himself up so rarely.

"It's just a dream."

"No." His voice was a low snarl. "It is not just a dream. It is a defeat. Dreams are the subconscious representation of our conscious state; that is all. Dreams do not control _me_. I am the master of my own thoughts. _I_ choose their flow and direction, anything else would be intolerable." His brow furrowed as if with pain. "And yet the evidence is before you, Sherlock Holmes, brought to his knees - to physical violence - _by a nightmare_."

She had never heard him sound so bitter. Spurred as much by the surreal, dreamlike feeling of the hour as by uncharacteristic boldness, Molly turned, and, kneeling on the bed, took Sherlock's face gently between her hands. He started in surprise, but didn't pull away. She took a breath and regarded him seriously. "James Moriarty is dead. And tomorrow, Sherlock Holmes is coming back to life. It is _just_ a dream. You won."

Surprise faded slowly from his expression and was replaced gradually by something altogether different. A dark intensity settled over his features, and his eyes glittered in a way that made her feel rather like a mouse must when it is cornered by a cat.

Her eyes widened and she dropped her hands with a gasp just as he lunged for her. His fingers threaded into her hair and his lips were on hers, capturing them in a hungry kiss.

As many times as Molly had imagined what it must be like to kiss Sherlock Holmes, she had managed to get it wrong every single time. She had expected him to be awkward and untried. When would he have ever had the chance to practice, for goodness sake? But then it had never occurred to her that, even in something as emotionally driven as physical intimacy, observation and deduction could be useful tools when properly applied.

Sherlock knew how to properly apply them.

His hands cradled her head, changing angles as he deepened the kiss, bearing her backwards and lowering her gently to the bed. His lips were soft and warm, and she responded without thought, kissing him back, opening under the insistent pressure of his tongue and moaning into his mouth as he explored her with the same focused attention he showed to everything else.

His lips never left hers as he settled over her, chest to chest and thigh to thigh. She met his tongue with her own and his hand tightened, almost painfully, in her hair. She felt more than heard the low, satisfied rumble in his chest, like the purr of a leopard. He tugged on her hair, forcing her to tilt her head back and then his lips were gone, trailing down the column of her throat, his breath hot and moist on her sensitive skin. She gasped and realized dazedly that she had nearly forgotten to breathe.

Well of _course_ Sherlock Holmes would kiss like a bloody house on fire.

He did something delightful with his lips just at the curve of her neck, and she gasped again and reached for him, tangling her hands in the back of his hair, desperate to feel his curls between her fingers and hoping he would stay put and do whatever that was again. He did, and she sighed, turning her head to give him better access. Then he was over her once more, his weight bearing her down into the mattress, the hard ridge of his erection pressing into the tender skin of her inner thigh.

Molly Hooper was passive in many and varied aspects of her life, but sex was not one of them. She had never seen the point in the 'lie back and think of England' philosophy of sexual conduct and refused to subscribe to it on moral grounds. None of the men she had ever been with before - few though they had been - had ever seemed to care how their relative level of enthusiasm was being judged by her, and she didn't see why she should have to care if they didn't. She enjoyed sex. She wasn't going to pretend otherwise on the rare occasions when she actually got to have it. She reasoned somewhat coherently that Sherlock would know if she were holding back, anyway, so why bother?

She caught his face in her hands, bringing him down so she could taste his lips, outlining them with her tongue before she tilted her head and kissed him again, licking inside his mouth until he moaned, pushing himself hard against the damp 'v' at the apex of her thighs. Sparks lit up behind her eyelids and she responded in kind, pressing her hips upwards and reveling in the hiss of indrawn breath that she was rewarded with.

Sherlock reached down to where their bare legs were tangled together and ran his free hand up the back of her leg, skating across her tingling skin and rucking up her nightshirt as he went. He drew her knee up to his waist to better position himself against her sex, and then cupped her backside and pulled her close.

"Oh!" Molly gasped at the delicious friction as he ground himself gently against her core. There was nothing between them now but the thin fabric of her knickers and his own boxer shorts.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. His face was slack with desire, his lips parted; his pupils were dilated huge and black with only the barest trace of colour around the edges. This was the most unfocused and out of control she had ever seen him. This was Sherlock Holmes raw and untethered. _And broken and hurting_, she added mentally.

She realized with a sudden pang and complete certainty that if this went on, if they continued down this path and crossed the final line - if they had sex tonight - Sherlock would never forgive her. This was not him; this wasn't the calm, controlled, emotionally contained man that he had been when he left, nor, she was positive, the one that he wanted to be again. The realization made her sad, but also relieved. She knew it meant that she had to be strong enough for the both of them, and she could do that. There was no way she could do it for just herself. She was too selfish, had wanted this for too long. But she could do it for him.

In the most extraordinary display of perfect timing she had ever witnessed, Toby chose this exact moment to investigate the unusual, middle of the night activity, by leaping up onto the bed right next to Molly's face.

Sherlock jerked back and Molly let out a squeak and rolled sideways, breaking free of his embrace and effectively rolling off the bed.

"Toby!" she cried in welcome exasperation.

Toby was patently unconcerned. He padded the length of the bed before jumping silently back to the ground. It didn't take a minute for him to decide that the company was lacking. Flicking his tail in dismissal, he wandered back through the open bedroom door.

She stood halfway across the room from a terribly disheveled, and completely stunning, Sherlock Holmes. God, but he was beautiful. Even with the cuts and bruises marring his porcelain skin, or perhaps especially because of them, he looked like something that would have been carved into a Roman temple. He was mouthwatering.

And here, in the other corner, stood mousey Molly Hooper in her faded pink night shirt - the one with the splodgy stain on the front. She knew her lips would be red and swollen from kissing and her hair was like a haystack. The contrast in her head was so stark as to be painful.

They were both breathing heavily, their skin flushed, and Molly found it absolutely and completely mortifying.

He was eyeing her, weighing her like a piece of evidence again. His eyes were sparkling with some thought that he didn't seem compelled to share with her right now.

She would do this for him, she would give him back to himself unaltered, but it was like tearing something important loose from inside her chest to walk away right now.

She didn't need to say a word. All she had to do was cross the room - she could do it in three steps, and reach for him - she could all but feel her fingers thread through his hair, pull him down to her - lips pressed hard against his -

"I suppose I should probably be getting back to bed," she said, bobbing her head and giving him that inane half-smile that she hated on herself.

He nodded once, and Molly was almost certain that he was knew what she was doing and that she was doing it for him. At least, she hoped so. She hoped he understood, because if he didn't, if he thought she was rejecting him -

"Goodnight, Molly." His voice was completely unreadable, his expression as shuttered and inscrutable as it ever was. He turned away, his attention already back on the dark rectangle of the window.

"Goodnight, Sherlock," she said, and before she could change her mind, she escaped, leaving him standing there as he watched London pass by on the streets below.

When she woke in the morning, he was already gone.

* * *

A/N: *ahem* So, I hope y'all enjoyed your mid-week update:) Thanks to all of you who have commented and encouraged. Your reviews and PMs feed the muse and keep her euphorically happy and productive.

Heartfelt thanks to Katie F and allofmyheart for their kind and gentle guidance in regards to...well, pretty much every aspect of this story. They keep it readable and in character and I couldn't do it without them! Bless!

Thank you so much for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Sherlock Holmes lived for deviation. Normal was boring. Normal was a predictable, brainless factory setting that left no room for thought or meaningful action. He needed distraction, diversion, change, alteration - it was the engagement of the mind that he craved, even more than his next breath of air. The focus of an interesting case, directed investigation, observation, deduction - they absorbed his attention and drowned out the incessant noise of his overactive mind.

He had been labeled at a young age. 'Genius', 'brilliant', 'gifted'. Gifted. Yes, that was his favorite - 'gifted', as though he'd been handed a package wrapped in shiny paper with a bow attached. It was so much a misnomer as to be laughable. The connotation seemed so mildly pleasant. Who wouldn't want their child to be 'gifted'? It spoke of intelligence and promise, a bright future for the eager learner. Any parent would be _proud_.

What they didn't include in the brochure was the torment - the endless, ceaseless, maddening roar of an underutilized brain. Without absorption, his mind was a tidal wave of crushing, unstoppable thoughts that he could not turn off. Unless he was focused, unless his brain was actively engaged on a problem, he was trapped in a mind that raged like an electrical storm. Boredom was a state akin to insanity.

He wasn't bored, not now, but the problem that occupied his tired mind was Molly.

He left her flat shortly after she bolted out of his room like a skittish colt. There was no chance of further sleep that night. He wouldn't risk another round of nightmares within her hearing, even if the fatigue did still weigh him down like a stone. He'd waited restlessly in the pastel atrocity that was her guest room until he was assured by the even cadence of her breathing that she had fallen back to sleep, and then, to put it succinctly, he scarpered.

He wasn't actually running away. He wasn't. He was simply avoiding the unpleasant emotional aftermath of a purely physiological, autonomic reaction. The unexpected surge of sexual arousal was a perfectly normal response in the wake of a fear stressor, especially in consideration of his body's protracted state of exhaustion. If it wasn't his usual reaction in the same set of circumstances - well, that could be attributed to any number of other factors. There was a fair chance that Molly was somewhere significant in her menstrual cycle that affected her pheromonal output. Possibly he had been existing on such a low rung of the hierarchy of needs for so long that his body had adjusted to the primal conditions he had been forced to endure for the past two years.

It was unimportant, at any rate. There had been no actual coitus. A brief round of heavy petting was intellectually meaningless. It was nothing more than a base and primal instinct, unfortunately acted upon. He was mildly chagrined that he'd practically leapt on the poor girl. Molly was going to be embarrassed by the whole ordeal, which would be tiresome, but he doubted he would have much call to see her for at least the next few weeks. Perhaps, in that amount of time, she would get over it.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and forced the image of her reddened lips and sleep-tousled hair out of his head. He refused to wonder why it took more effort than it should have.

London was a city that never slept. It was one of the many things about it that so intrigued him - the constant frenetic energy, like the firing synapses of the human brain. In the daylight it was all bright chaos - movement, noise, action and reaction. Come nightfall, it was tempered, but still active, moving at a more sedate pace, but never completely quiet. And it was certainly capable of conjuring a nightmare or two every now and again.

Sherlock walked for miles. He might have said that he walked aimlessly, but he was standing across from 221 Baker Street exactly one hour and fifteen minutes after he left Molly's apartment, precisely the amount of time he had known it would take him to get there.

It was nearly six o'clock in the morning. The sun had not yet begun to stage its grand entrance on the sleeping city, but it wasn't far off, either. There was an expectant feel in the air, as though the world had finally lost patience with the long stretch of night and was anxiously awaiting the coming of the new day.

Traffic began to pick up, and Sherlock gradually stopped earning wary glances from passers-by as his presence on the street became a less notable oddity. The commuters for whom Saturday morning meant nothing more than another weekend on the job began to peek out of their burrows, coffee mugs in hand as they made their bleary way to fortunately parked cars or, more frequently, the Tube station at the end of the street.

The lights in John's old room flared to life at exactly five fifty-seven. Clearly, he hadn't bothered to be precise the last time he had reset the time on his alarm clock.

A shadow passed between the light source and the window, but it was far too slim to be John. The lady friend, then - whatever her name was. He thought that Molly must have said, but he hadn't bothered to record the information. He considered the possibility that he might have to actually learn this one. John must be serious about her if he was having her spend the night at the flat on a work night.

Sherlock had obtained a rundown of all of John Hamish Watson's current characteristics thanks to the meticulous work of his homeless network. His off-the-grid computer hacker, 'Zee', who styled himself a revolutionary but was really no more than a lazy non-conformist who flaunted non-payment of his licensing fee like a badge of defiance, had included everything up to and including his current employment statistics, financial situation and standing laundry order. The scruffy computer programmer was, if nothing else, thorough.

In the wake of his friend's apparent suicide, John's therapist had recommended, among other things, that he take a job he could look upon as meaningful, that he find something significant and noteworthy to occupy his time and his thoughts. More than anything, she felt that John need to avoid the easy trap of inactivity. It had taken him several weeks to get around to making the effort, but once he had, he had almost immediately been offered a part-time commission with Defence Medical Services for returning war veterans.

It sounded positively ghastly. And boring. John must be out of his mind with the tedium of so saccharine a daily routine. He had three days a week in a gloomy, NHS-funded examination cubicle with green painted breeze-block walls, a desultory staff and bad fluorescent lighting. It hardly bore thinking about.

Upstairs at 221B, the curtain twitched and then was pulled to the side altogether. And then, for the first time in more than two years, Sherlock clapped eyes on the best friend he had ever known.

John stood in the window holding a mug, wearing a dark blue dressing gown and sporting the most god-awful moustache Sherlock had ever had the misfortune to encounter. He frowned. Zee had not seen fit to mention the moustache. A severe oversight on his part.

He was not even remotely concerned that John might see him before he was prepared for the confrontation. People, he had observed, would not see what they did not expect to see. John was cleverer than many, but not exactly an exceptional mind. Expectation gave shape to perception, and John could hardly expect to see his deceased former flat-mate loitering on the pavement across the way. Sherlock could have held up a sign with John's name on it in fairy lights and the good doctor would, most likely, have looked straight past him.

A blonde-haired woman joined his friend in front of the window and John's entire face lit up like a Christmas tree. Sherlock arched an eyebrow and revised his previous assessment. He was definitely going to have to learn the name of this one. She was here for the duration. John was smitten.

Sherlock rolled his eyes at the added complication this would present to his return.

He had been away, but now he was back. The best thing would be for everything to return to what it had once been. Oh, there would be an adjustment period, he knew; he wasn't stupid. He would have to give John time to forgive him for his deception, but once that was out of the way, there was no reason why things at 221B shouldn't be the same as they had been before Moriarty. He would get the website buffed up and take a few private cases until he could wrangle his way back into Lestrade's good graces, but after that it would be he and John, out on the battlefield, together once more.

Within half an hour, John and his moustache left the flat and headed for the Tube station along with the blonde woman. At the corner, they paused to say goodbye, kissing for an indecorous amount of time before parting and going their separate ways. John continued on towards the station and the woman got into a black VW Scirocco. Ah, another doctor then. Well, at least she and John had something to talk about.

Sherlock slipped through the front door of the building as quickly and easily as if he had been using his old key in the lock. He slipped his lock-picking tools back into the inner pocket of his coat with a satisfied smile.

The scent of the stairwell evoked a wave of memories, and he almost reeled under the weight of them. He blinked at the unexpected bout of nostalgia. It was Osmo floor wax and Citra Clean mixed with the lingering notes of Mrs. Hudson's excellent coffee and the biscuits she, no doubt, still kept on hand for John and his lady doctor.

221C, it would seem, had finally been rented in his absence, and by a couple, if the extra sets of scuff marks on the floors were anything to go by. Time had passed, changes were inevitable.

His hand ghosted lightly over the railing as he made his way up the steps to his old flat. He felt as if he had an odd weight in his chest. It was something like the quiet reverence of a church - an almost spiritual feeling of coming home. Had he missed this? He hadn't thought about it much during the course of his travels, what would the point have been? But now, he wondered - was this sentiment?

He hesitated briefly before breaking into the flat. It wasn't that he was conflicted about the morality behind it. It was still his flat, was it not? He hadn't _actually_ died, so there was no reason for his name to be taken off the rental agreement, was there? He simply stopped to consider for a moment that John, or perhaps his woman, may have taken it into their heads to change things around. That wouldn't do.

He opened the door.

Coming home felt like - well, coming home. A sense of great relief settled over him, and a smile spread slowly across his face.

Some things had changed, but in essence, all was as it had once been - or at least as it had once been on those occasions immediately after Mrs. Hudson had taken it into her head to tidy up after him.

The kitchen was clean - as clean as a bachelor's kitchen needed to be, at any rate, considering it was primarily used to make tea and sandwiches. There were no signs of his old lab equipment. Not that he had expected it to still be there, but he pursed his lips and hoped John had at least kept the inverted trinocular fluorescence phase contrast microscope. Those were difficult to come by and not inexpensive.

The sitting room had been tidied to a level that suggested either Mrs. Hudson or the lady doctor had had a hand in it. Or perhaps John was still working hard on impressing his girlfriend. Of course, if that were the case, surely he wouldn't be wearing a great fuzzy caterpillar across his top lip. Really, someone was going to have to have a word with him about that.

The door to Sherlock's old room was closed. He narrowed his eyes at it, wondering what the chances were of John having left it as it was, a shrine of sorts to his late friend's memory. The doctor had a sentimental streak the size of the Thames, true, but he was practical as well.

He crossed the lounge and pushed the door open and scowled. Not sentimental enough, apparently. Practicality had won out in spades. At least his old furniture was still there, beneath all the rubbish. What on earth did a DMS physician need with this many boxes of paperwork?

Irritably he toed the lid off of one of the boxes and pulled a file out of it at random, not caring if he messed up the order.

He had expected some kind of medical records and frowned when he realized it was photostats of witness statements from a closed criminal investigation. The name at the top was Poppy Everhard, and the investigating officer listed was Sergeant G. Lestrade.

Sherlock's mind spun through his memories until he found the right one. This was a case he had worked on long before meeting John Watson. It had been a strange death that had baffled the police, who hadn't been able to decide at the time whether to call it a murder, a suicide or natural causes. Ultimately, it had been an issue of a leaky boiler, an electrical short and a curious cat with an extremely unlucky owner. He couldn't imagine the significance of the case or why it should be in sitting here in a box in his old bedroom.

He jammed the file haphazardly back into the original box and snatched out another one. Copies of the evidence logs for the Hydewell-Broback murder investigation - another of his closed cases. Now, he began pulling folders at random: the Bulwalter kidnapping, Eunomy Cresswell's missing Arabian, the forgery of Matthias Fairchild's will, the Dunham murder-suicide with the added dash of industrial espionage, Peter Ricoletti and the kidnap of the banker from Chelsea - all his old cases, all stuffed in boxes lying about his old room.

A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he fairly leapt across the room to where a new laptop sat on the desk with its green power indicator light glowing. He pulled the main screen up, pleased to see John hadn't bothered to password protect this one; he was far too impatient to spend the extra minute sussing out whatever bit of cleverness John would have thought to use. He dug into the doctor's recent documents, but didn't have to go far. The last file accessed had been at ten o'clock the previous evening and was entitled simply 'Sherlock'.

An odd feeling that he would not have been able to name rose up in Sherlock as he looked at the little white rectangle glowing there on the screen. His chest felt tight and the dust he had kicked up while he was rifling through the boxes suddenly started bothering his sinuses. He coughed and cleared his throat, blinking hard.

He knew what he was going to see before he positioned the cursor over the icon, but it still affected him like an out-of-control lorry to the solar plexus when he opened the file.

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, by John H. Watson.

He swallowed with difficulty and scrolled quickly through the pages without pausing to read more than a sentence or two here or there. When he got to the end of the document - over a hundred and twenty pages at present - he calmly closed out of it and then dropped into the chair as though the strength had gone out of him entirely.

He steepled his fingers together under his chin and sat perfectly still for a long time. A line from a poem he had read once back in uni came to mind. It was a mere slip of poetry, and he couldn't have said on pain of death who had written it, but, oddly, he was thankful that he had not deleted it. It seemed… necessary, somehow, to have words for this.

Without realizing he was doing it, he spoke softly into the quiet room. "And say my glory was I had such friends."

A short while later, Sherlock let himself out of the flat, locking it firmly behind him. He could hear the distant sound of Mrs. Hudson humming cheerfully in her flat below. The scent of cinnamon drifted up the stairwell. His lips curled into a grin.

He rapped on Mrs. Hudson's door three times and stood straight with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Coming." Her singsong voice called out. "Just a tick."

He could picture her moving about her kitchen, rearranging baking sheets, practicing her own bit of chemistry with flour and sugar and eggs. He hoped there were spice biscuits. Those were his favourite.

The door swung open.

"Hullo, Mrs. Hudson," he said with a bright smile that turned, at once, to chagrin as his landlady, without any change of expression, slid slowly to the floor in a dead faint. "Oh, um, Mrs. Hudson?"

* * *

A/N: Sherlock may not remember who wrote the poem that he quotes, but I do! The line comes from William Butler Yeats poem 'The Municipal Gallery Revisited'.

This is one of my favorite chapters to date. I am not a 'JohnLock' shipper by any stretch of the imagination, but the friendship between John and Sherlock is, in my opinion, of a far more epic and grand scale than any mere romantic relationship could ever be. Two men who love each other unabashedly without the need for romantic involvement to validate that love is, in all honesty, far more meaningful to me than all the Sherlolly in the universe, and THAT is saying something!

Thanks, as ever, to all of you who are so kind as to leave words of encouragement or enthusiasm either as a review or in a private message. I hug them and squeeze them and call them George every time. If I cannot reply to you because of your account settings or because you are commenting as a guest - please know that your reviews are very much appreciated!

And the usual thanks and unworthy bows to my lovely betas, Katie F and allofmyheart, for keeping me true to the characters as well as the sentence structure. I owe you guys my first born (seriously, he's driving me crazy. Who wants him first?).

Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Hullo, Mr. Patel," Molly said cheerfully as she wiggled her fingers into a clean pair of latex gloves. "Let's get in there and see what we've got, shall we?" She saw Howard and Sanjay exchange glances out of the corner of her eye, but she ignored them. So what if she liked to talk to the bodies while she prepped for their post-mortems? It wasn't as if she carried on while she was running the voice recorder or anything.

She was well aware of all the sniggers and whispers about 'Morbid Molly' that the technologists and orderlies thought were so terribly clever, but she didn't care. She vastly preferred the quiet company of the cadavers over most of the hospital staff anyway. At minimum, the bodies were much less judgmental.

She wasn't morbid, though, not really. She wasn't fascinated by death or even overly interested in it; she simply didn't _mind_ it. Once the body of the deceased made it onto her table, life and death were no longer an issue. When the physician's job ended and hers began, it was just a matter of facts that needed recording and puzzles that needed solving. Those things interested her. They were what made her good at her job.

She didn't anticipate much of a puzzle with poor Mr. Patel today, though. He had been an overweight, cigarette-smoking, fifty-two year old diabetic with a sedentary day job. She wasn't usually much of a betting woman, but she might have been willing to put a few quid on the suspected myocardial infarction due to atheromatous plaque rupture.

She put the Stryker saw on the tray next to her face shield and then dived back into the instruments cupboard for an array of scalpels and scissors and a Hagedorn needle for suturing Mr. Patel back up in time for his viewing.

The prep work was technically Sanjay's job, but the pathology technologist was busy helping Howard with his cultures, and anyway, she didn't mind doing it herself. The method and ritual of it was calming, and it distracted her from thinking of anything beyond the job in front of her.

Distraction was good, necessary in fact. For the past five days Molly had done anything and everything she could think of to distract herself from playing back over that catastrophic night with Sherlock. He had had a nightmare, she had patched up his wounds, he had kissed her until her toes curled, and then she had walked away. Frankly, she still couldn't quite believe that it had happened. She hadn't seen or heard from him since.

His absence, in itself, wasn't so unusual. His Bart's invasions had never adhered to any particular schedule. If he needed the lab equipment or, occasionally, a body, he would simply burst through the doors with his coat billowing out behind him, shouting things like, 'Molly! I need to run a bacterial analysis on the Porter skin samples. Get me the slides, and do be quick about it!' Although, to be fair, in the months after he and John had become flatmates, he would occasionally remember to throw a 'please' in there somewhere.

On the positive side of things, her flat had never been so neat and orderly. She had scrubbed every nook and cranny to within an inch of its life, cleaned and organized her cupboards, colour coordinated her closet and dusted and alphabetized all of her bookshelves. She was running out of distractions.

She sighed and tried once again to put the whole thing out of her head. "Alright then, Mr. Patel," she said aloud, slipping on her splatter guard and selecting a scalpel. "This won't hurt a bit."

Four hours later, Molly was at her desk filling out the last of her autopsy paperwork - cause of death deemed myocardial infarction due to atheromatous plaque rupture - when Sherlock burst into the morgue with his coat billowing behind him, and it was as though the past two years had never happened.

"Molly, I need to see the unidentified body that came in this afternoon." He hesitated for a split second and then went on impatiently. "In your own time."

"Hello, Sherlock," she said. She pressed her lips together and focused very hard on her signature.

"Oh, yes, of course. Hello, Molly. Oh, and please."

She looked up at him then and realized two things: one, that it had been a monumentally silly waste of time for her to worry about their little lapse the other night - Sherlock had clearly forgotten about it already, and two, that someone, and she had a fair idea of who it might have been, had given the lately returned consulting detective one hell of a black eye a few days ago.

"That looks like it must have hurt."

"What?" He wrinkled his brow at her and then winced. "Ah, yes, that." He gently touched the skin around his bruised eye. "John's getting married," he said as if by way of explanation.

"And he gets extra punchy when he's engaged, does he?" She tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the tinge of amusement out of her voice, and he gave her a withering look.

"Apparently," he dragged the word out, "Doctor Watson has taken up boxing in my absence."

She nodded. "Oh, right. I remember him mentioning. I think his therapist recommended it. Good exercise, stress relief, that sort of thing."

"Zee is _useless_," he muttered with a scowl.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing. Now about that body?"

Molly sifted through the files on her desk. "The only other body I have in just now is on hold for the Yard -"

"Yes, yes, that one."

She pressed her lips together. "Sorry, Sherlock. You know I can't let you look at it before Lestrade gets here."

Sherlock had been looking about the room as though she might have hidden the body somewhere other than in the drawer where it belonged. He spun around to look at her, "Lestrade? Is it his case?"

"Apparently."

"Oh, good! Wonderful! That's excellent news!" Sherlock clapped his hands together and and turned on his heel, suddenly filled with restless excitement. "This is perfect. He isn't nearly as stupid as the rest of those idiots."

"You think they'll let you back in straight away?" She bit her lip. "I don't know, Sherlock, the Superintendent was none too happy with you before you… went away."

Sherlock snorted. "London has been without its only consulting detective for two years, and the Yard's solve rate has been nothing short of abysmal in that time. I'm sure the two are completely unrelated."

Molly had to smile. Whatever else might have happened to him during his absence, his ego had not suffered any long-lasting damage. Grating as that unflappable self-confidence could be when you were the one on the opposite end of it, she was still glad that it hadn't been lost. Sherlock wouldn't be Sherlock without it.

She felt herself relax a bit; all the embarrassed tension of the past few days drained out of her. All that worrying over how things would be between them had been completely unnecessary. She should have known better. Sherlock didn't do emotional entanglements or - or _sex_. He brushed past things he didn't want to, or possibly couldn't, cope with, and simply pretended that they weren't there at all. It was reassuring, comforting even, to know that he could just look past that - whatever that was - the other night. It wouldn't affect their friendship, or relationship...or whatever it was that they had. She couldn't understand why she still felt an odd pressure in her chest or why it felt strangely like disappointment.

She glanced at him standing by her desk, dressed in unrelenting black, his hair still in desperate need of a trim with fading purple and blue smudges around his right eye. And then suddenly he was on top of her, his hot mouth pressed hard against her throat, her fingers threading through his hair, his breath erratic against her skin.

"Molly?"

She jumped and looked up at Sherlock as he frowned down at her from the other side of the desk.

"You've just turned completely pink, did you know that? I asked when you were expecting Lestrade"

"Oh, um - now, actually. Oh, look, there he is." She shoved her chair back so quickly it fell over. "Hello, Detective Inspector!" she said with what, she realized belatedly, probably seemed like manic enthusiasm. Nevertheless, she was ridiculously thankful to see him. She made a mental note to have a very long, very serious talk with her subconscious later.

"Well, if it isn't the late, great Sherlock Holmes," Lestrade said with his usual dry aplomb as he sauntered into the room. "Good of you to drop us a line there, mate."

"Hello, Detective Inspector," Sherlock said, inclining his head with wry formality. "I would apologize for not having kept in touch, but if you'll recall, the last time I saw you, you were trying very hard to arrest me."

Lestrade shrugged. "That was just a little misunderstanding though, wasn't it? Nothing that would drive a man to fake his own death or anything." He raised an eyebrow.

"I had some things that needed taking care of."

"Well, yeah, obviously. That's just what I thought it was." The Detective Inspector nodded and crossed his arms. "Everything work out all right?"

"Yes." Sherlock said simply.

"Good show, then," Lestrade said, somehow managing to sound impressed, but only ironically. Then he chuckled. "Welcome back, Sherlock. I am glad you're not dead, for the record. Things haven't been the same. Hell, I haven't had the desire to hit anyone in ages." He extended a hand.

Sherlock eyed it briefly and then flicked a glance at the detective inspector's face. Presumably finding what he was looking for there, he reached out and grasped the proffered hand and shook it, nodding.

Molly let out a breath and only then realized she had been holding it. She blinked and looked to Lestrade. "Are you ready to see the body now?"

"Yeah," He said then he turned back to Sherlock. "Fair warning, Sherlock - it's come down from on high that I'm not to let you officially consult on cases anymore."

"Well, we wouldn't want to break the rules, now would we, Detective Inspector?"

Lestrade shifted on his feet. "Look, I don't want to be an arse, but I got busted back down to sergeant for six months for letting you help out before. I've only just got my old desk back."

"That must have been very difficult for you, DI Lestrade," Sherlock bit off coldly. He looked as though he wished he could take back the handshake.

"Don't be such a git," Lestrade said without heat. He rubbed a hand across his forehead with a sigh. "You know as well as I do that we could use your help - that we _need_ your help - but even with your name cleared, the Chief Superintendent's not a big fan of yours."

"John's the one that levelled him," Sherlock said.

"Well, he's not such a big fan of his either, is he? But the good doctor's not the one here looking to start poking around at our corpses." Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose and then threw his hand out when Sherlock tried to interject again. "Enough, alright? I'm sorry, but that's all there is to it. I can't let you officially consult on our cases anymore, full stop."

Sherlock's curled his lip in displeasure.

"Now, if you would unofficially stand over there," Lestrade went on, gesturing to the space on the far side of the drawer Molly was poised to pull out. "Our helpful pathologist can tell us all about this man here, who was found lying on top of the Shard this morning with nearly every bone in his body broken." He gave Sherlock a meaningful look. "As a gentle reminder for those of us who have a tendency to forget minor details - you are in no way, shape or form officially permitted to involve yourself in this case at this time."

Sherlock hesitated, a flicker of consternation crossing his features, and then he nodded silently and positioned himself across the tray from Lestrade.

Entirely confused by what she had just witnessed, Molly flicked a glance at each of the men and then, with a mental shrug, hauled the drawer open.

"Okay, so this is our guy - adult male, between thirty-five and forty years old. He was found in the early hours of this morning on the seventy-fourth floor of the Shard - that's the second level of the spire - by a couple of maintenance workers who were doing a routine check. I'd put time of death at least thirty-six hours before that though. There are multiple signs of trauma - a lot of broken bones - but based on the lack of any inflammation of the tissue fibres, I'm confident that those injuries were all sustained post-mortem."

"So do we know what killed him?" Lestrade asked.

"Asphyxiation due to drowning," Molly said, gratified by the startled expression on both of the men's faces.

"Drowning?" Lestrade said. "Are you sure?"

"She is a certified and licensed pathologist." Sherlock interjected looking down at the body in rapt fascination. She could tell he was itching to do an examination of his own. "Let's take it as read that she knows how to tell the difference, shall we?"

Lestrade looked baffled. "He was found on a roof more than two-hundred and fifty metres in the air in the middle of London. What in heaven's name did he drown in?"

"Did they find climbing equipment at the scene?" Sherlock asked. He had already shifted into clinical mode and was leaning as far over the body as he could without falling on it.

"No," Lestrade replied. He pulled out his notebook and started flipping through the pages. "Nothing found near the body, no I.D., no equipment, nothing."

"Tell them to go back and look for it, probably somewhere higher up inside the spire."

"Climbing equipment?" The inspector stopped flipping and looked up. "What're you thinking? Unofficially, of course."

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow at him. "Of course," he said mildly, cutting a sideways glance at Lestrade over the body. "Look at his hands." Sherlock's pale fingers traced the air above the dead man's cold ones. "Distinctive scarring of the knuckles and fingers caused by pressure burns - acrylic rope, clearly - some of them quite old. He's been a climber for a long time - fifteen years or more based on the age of those scars. Generalized swelling around the knuckles as well as evidence of long-term use of cortisone shots in the joints. He's experienced regular and severe trauma to the joints in his hands." He moved up to the shoulder and indicated a neat line of indented flesh. "Surgical scar, most likely for a torn rotator cuff. Common injury in climbers." He turned his head and looked back up at Lestrade. "He wouldn't be the first BASE jumper or abseiler to slip past the unremarkable security at the Shard. They've had trouble with recreational trespassers since before construction was completed. They don't usually die on the way _up_, but there's a first time for everything, isn't there? We won't know for certain until you find his equipment." He looked up at Lestrade with an expectant expression on his face. "Well?"

"But he drowned," Molly said, blinking up at Sherlock as Lestrade walked away, his mobile already plastered to his ear.

"Yes, I know." He looked down at her, and she recognized that gleam of excitement in his eyes. "That's what makes it so interesting."

Lestrade closed his phone a few moments later. "I've got a couple of guys headed back out to do a thorough sweep inside the frame of the spire. You going to come and unofficially see what we find?"

"Certainly, Detective Inspector," Sherlock said. "I'll get a cab and meet you there."

"'Course you will," Lestrade said, unfazed. He nodded at Molly and gave her a warm smile. "Good to see you again, Dr. Hooper."

"You too, Greg," she said with a short wave. She watched the doors swing shut behind Lestrade and then turned back to Sherlock. "So what are you -" She stopped, startled by the dark, narrow-eyed expression on his face as he looked after the departing detective. He was positively glowering. "Are you okay?"

"Does Lestrade always smile at you like that?"

"Does he what?" Molly frowned.

"His divorce is final, that much is clear. One too many P.E. teachers for even the noble copper to overlook. It had to happen eventually." He turned his raptor's gaze on her. "So does he always smile at you like that, or was it just the instinctive response of a lonely, single man on the pull?"

Molly's mouth opened and closed a few times before she managed to form a coherent response. "W-well, he's always been friendly, if that's what you mean."

"No." He elongated the word, letting it drag out to show his annoyance at having to clarify himself. "That's not what I meant. And you know that's not what I meant. Don't feign being obtuse, Molly. I have too many historical examples of the unfeigned variety from which to stage a comparison."

"Now you're just being rude," she said, crossing her arms and scowling up at him.

"Am I?" His brow shot up in surprise.

She rolled her eyes. Oh for heaven's sake. "Yes, you are. Stop it. And no, Lestrade doesn't 'always smile at me like that'. He's always been very friendly and pleasant to me, but on balance I'd say he's probably smiling because he's glad you're back."

"Is he?" He looked back in surprise at the door Lestrade had just exited.

She closed her eyes and sighed. It was really no good getting angry with him. In many ways he was just brilliant, but in so many others he was such a child. "Yes, of course he is. We all are." She gathered all the paperwork on their drowned John Doe and tapped it all into a neat rectangle. "Besides, what do you care if Lestrade smiles at me?"

He ignored the question and went to retrieve his coat. Molly mentally threw up her hands and went back to her desk and the last few details of Mr. Patel's autopsy report. She already had her head bowed and her brow furrowed in concentration when Sherlock came to stand in front of her desk, making her look up. He'd put on his scarf and coat with the collar turned up and was working his fingers studiously into his gloves.

"You called John," he said without looking up at her. "About the body."

Molly blinked in surprise. "Um - I don't know what you're, uh - " She wasn't ever going to make much of an actress.

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. Lestrade certainly didn't call him. There are a limited number of people who know there's a body at all, much less one unusual enough to interest me." He quirked an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to confess.

She flushed and looked down, glaring hard at her desk. "I-I just thought that we could use you. No - sorry, I mean, um, Greg - that Greg could use you - on the case that is." She resisted the urge to crawl under her desk until he left.

"Thank you, Molly," he said softly. "That was very - kind of you."

"Oh, well I didn't um -" she stammered. When she looked up again, the doors to the morgue were swinging shut behind him.

* * *

A/N: Not a lot of forward movement for our favourite consulting detective and his pathologist, but we have to get Sherlock back into the world somehow, and you know you missed Greg:)

Thanks for the wonderful PMs and reviews! It makes the hours and hours that I *slave* away over this story completely and totally worth it:) You all rock and I send you virtual hugs.

Daisies, rainbows and unicorns to my betalicious team, Katie F and allofmyheart, who encourage, correct, prod and fangirl to keep me in line. In addition to my firstborn, I am also willing to throw in his little sister. She's *really* cute, but she's kind of a pain in the butt.

Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

It had been an exceedingly gratifying case. John had written it up as 'The Solitary Climber', which made Sherlock wince. He would never understand how John came up with these foolish designations. He supposed it was an acceptable price to pay to see his friend tapping away at his computer with cheerful purpose once again, especially now that he'd had the sense to shave off that ridiculous moustache.

Still riding the high of the past three weeks of engrossing investigation, Sherlock reached for his coat and decided to go for a walk. He left John basking in the glow of his laptop while Mary sat curled up next to him on the sofa, entranced by a foolish rom-com on the telly. It was dreadfully domestic.

His mind buzzed pleasantly with the aftereffects of the investigation. It would be a short-lived lull in the storm, he knew, it always was, but he would revel in the calm while it lasted. For a while, at least, his thoughts were steady, the roar abated. He felt almost _relaxed_.

He had only ever found two ways to subdue the gnawing chaos that ate at his mind. An engaging case that picked up the loose threads of his frantic thoughts was the less destructive option, when it was available. The work smoothed the jagged edges, focused his attention, and gave it a purpose. The other worked when nothing else could, when there were no cases, no distractions, no direction. When the thought of spending another second inside his head was so unbearable that he could no longer stand it - that was when he had turned to the drugs.

Cocaine had been his poison of choice for many years. He'd experimented with it at uni out of his usual innate curiosity, but when he had discovered that it did what nothing else could - that it dulled his mind and made the inevitable boredom of daily life tolerable - then he had become an addict.

He'd thought of himself as a casual addict. He did not depend on a regular or increasing supply of the little packets of powder to feed his addiction. He only needed it - only _wanted_ it - when he wasn't using his mind for anything engrossing enough to quiet the noise in his head. It buoyed him through university and out the other side without slowing him down in any appreciable way. It wasn't until after he completed his studies, after he no longer had even the simple puzzles required of academia to interest him, that life became stupefyingly boring. His mind had become a scribbled blur with no outlet. There was no peace, no rest, no calm. He had felt like going mad; he had wanted to scream his frustration and bash his head against a wall to just make it stop, for the love of Christ.

That was when he had started using in earnest. He had given up the pretense of being a casual addict and embraced his addiction with wide-spread arms like a religious convert. He had been a junkie and he hadn't cared, because the oblivion was better than the madness.

And then Mycroft had found him out.

The brothers had never got on. The age difference was too great, the personality difference even more insurmountable. But Mycroft Holmes did care for his baby brother and, in deference to their mother's worried expression, had made it a point to keep an eye on Sherlock after he had moved to London. Sherlock was difficult to keep tabs on simply because he was too good at knowing when he was being watched and even better at avoiding it if he so chose. So, though Mycroft was diligent, it was nearly a year before he knew the depths to which his brother had sunk.

It was his arrest that had finally got Mycroft's attention. He had seen to it that Sherlock's name was flagged in all the appropriate places, and the phone on his desk had rung almost before the arresting officer had finished filling out the report.

There had been no dramatic showdown, no intervention or threats or tears. Mycroft had simply employed all the power of his non-existent position to have Sherlock's ignominious arrest pulled from the records and destroyed. Then he had personally driven the pale, emaciated wreck that had once been his younger brother to a facility that specialized in that sort of thing, and instructed them to take care of it.

Three months later Sherlock Holmes had emerged from the centre, enmity towards his brother cemented more firmly than a dragonfly trapped in amber, but clean. His eyes, though narrowed in sullen dislike, were no longer hollow and bloodshot; his hair, if shaggy and in need of a cut, was no longer dry, dull and lifeless. He was still painfully thin, but now there were muscles beneath the too-large clothing - a result of the compulsory physical exercise that came as part of the programme's regimen. He was angry and resentful, but Mycroft couldn't possibly have cared less. His brother was alive and healthy, and that was all that mattered.

With little pomp and even less conversation, Mycroft had taken him to a new flat he'd rented for Sherlock, had one very serious conversation about what would happen to him if he ever lost himself like that again and then pointed him in the direction of Scotland Yard.

"If you won't come and work with me, then help them, Sherlock. For heaven's sake, do something useful with yourself."

"They don't want my help," he'd replied with a scowl, curled in a ball on the sofa, wrapped in his dressing gown.

"Make them want it. Or are you not as clever as that?"

Sherlock disappeared sixteen months later. It took Mycroft nearly a month to track him down, but then they went straight from the dank hovel Sherlock had holed up in with the other homeless junkies back to the hospital for another three month stay.

There were a total of three relapses, spread across eleven years. Each one of them was followed by a methodical search, expunged records, and an extended stay in the detox facility.

The last time, the one that had finally put Mycroft over the edge, had been almost five years ago.

He had arrived at the rehabilitation center in his personal car and was standing by the driver's side door when Sherlock had sauntered outside with a petulant scowl on his face. "Sherlock," he nodded graciously to his little brother.

"Mycroft," Sherlock responded, his tone clipped and irritable. He went around to the passenger door and tried to open it, but it was still locked. He cocked an eyebrow at his brother and waited.

Mycroft looked at him calmly across the bonnet of the car. His voice was completely placid and unemotional. "I will never do this again, do you understand? The next time you vanish and I am expected to go and dig you out of some dirty, flea-infested hole, I will not only leave you there to rot, but I will also see to it that all of your previous records are reinstated. You will have a criminal background. You will be unable to work with the police ever again. And I will tell Mummy. Am I clear?"

Sherlock frowned at his brother, reading his resolve in the unperturbed expression on his face. Then he nodded once. "Yes."

"Good." Mycroft smiled at him and unlocked the car. "Oh, and one other thing," he began as they settled into their seats for the return drive to London. "I have found you a new flat in an excellent location. You will know the landlady from a previous case of yours, I believe. Her name is Hudson." He turned to Sherlock with a pleasant smile. "It has two bedrooms. You will find a flatmate who will keep you from making a fool out of yourself again, or I will yank your trust fund out from under you before you can blink. Violate my terms, and you will be a penniless junkie living on the streets until you die, which, I think, would not be very long." He put the car in gear. "Now, shall we go on?"

Sherlock was reluctant to give his elder brother credit for much of anything, but even he would admit, if pressed, that the threats worked. He'd been clean since.

He had turned to nicotine patches and the work - always the work. And then Mike Stamford had wandered into the Bart's lab with a war veteran recently returned from Afghanistan who was in need of a flatmate. And then, for a long time, the cases were there, and, more often than not, his mind was at peace.

The majority of his time as Joseph Bell had been absorbing enough to keep the temptation of pharmaceutical escape at bay. In Ashgabat, as the case - 'the mission' - became a trifling matter of tying up loose ends, the itch had started to come back, the fever of his mind spiking, and making him long desperately for relief. The opium dens, which one only need know where to look in order to find, called to him, beckoning with slender, smokey fingers.

It was the thought of his brother turning his back as promised, of John's disappointed disbelief, and oddly, of Molly's saddened eyes, that made him turn away, made him push through and grit his teeth through the disorder.

And now he had the work again, and the chaos remained at bay.

He had been walking for some time, turning the details of the case over in his head, savouring the memory of the logical progression from unknown quantity to resolution. Logic and reason - neatly ordered proof that turned any baffling mystery into a concise list of tangible, not at all mysterious facts.

His steps slowed and he glanced up, only partially surprised to find that he had fetched up on Molly's doorstep once more. He noted the dark windows of her flat, considering. Surely she would want to know how the case had turned out. She had, after all, been instrumental in his involvement. He should thank her - or at the very least, let her know that it had been solved - that he had solved it.

He pressed the button next to her nearly illegible doctor's scrawl and waited. A minute passed and he squinted at the panel of buttons, wondering if perhaps there was something wrong with the bell. She wouldn't be out on a weeknight, would she? He thought briefly of Lestrade and then discarded the idea. No, she had been telling the truth about that. At least from her own perspective. She probably had no idea how many men found her attractive. If she wasn't observant enough to make that deduction on her own, he certainly wasn't going to do it for her.

He was just starting to think about pressing one of her neighbour's bells, just to ensure that the panel was, in fact, working, when a sleepy voice came over the intercom.

"Hullo? Who's this?"

"It's Sherlock. Can I come up?"

"Sherlock?" She sounded more awake now. "What are you - Do you know that it's one-thirty in the morning?" Definitely more awake, definitely annoyed.

"Is it? I must have lost track of time. Can I come up?"

Her sigh came through the speaker as a tinny hiss. "Yeah, of course you can."

The door buzzed and he took the steps two at a time, meeting a squinting Molly on the top landing just as she opened her door, wrapped in a peach dressing gown with her hair in a plait.

"I was asleep," she said by way of greeting, but she stood aside and gestured for him to enter.

The hall light was on, but her sitting room was still dark as he skirted around the brocade armchair and dropped onto the sofa, careful to first check for any sign of her cat.

She crossed the room, shuffling in her slippers, and switched on the overhead light. "Tea?"

"That would be marvelous, thanks." He gave her a winning smile, but she just wrinkled her brow at him and shuffled into the kitchen.

He felt a flash of discomfort. It was quite late, wasn't it? Perhaps she was annoyed with him for coming by. Maybe she still hadn't forgiven him for launching himself at her the last time he had been there - but no, surely if she was angry with him, she wouldn't have gone out of her way to help him reconnect with Lestrade.

A few minutes later, she came back into the room, bearing two mugs of tea and wearing a pair of wire-framed glasses. She held out a steaming mug and then sat in the armchair with the other, carefully tucking her dressing gown around her legs. "Sorry, I'm out of milk. I need to get to the shop after work tomorrow."

"You're wearing glasses," he said, realization blooming in his chest. She wasn't angry with him. She simply hadn't been able to see him from across the room. He relaxed and leaned back on the sofa, taking a sip of the scalding liquid. She gave him a puzzled glance. "Yeah, I wear contacts usually, but I take those out before I go to bed." She narrowed her eyes at him. "To sleep."

"Of course you do," he said, nodding agreeably. "I thought, since I was in the neighbourhood, I would stop off and let you know that the case was concluded satisfactorily."

She perked up visibly and shifted in her seat, tucking her feet underneath her and looking at him with interest over the top of her mug. "Was it, then? That's great news, Sherlock. Congratulations."

Her face lit up with a delighted smile, and he found that he was quite glad that he had dropped in.

"So what happened, then?" she asked, settling into her chair. "How did a climber come to die from drowning on top of the tallest building in London?"

"Reggie Craig, thirty-three, a solicitor from Middlesex," he began, pulling the facts of the case easily from his memory. "He was, as I suspected, a self-styled 'urban explorer'. Plenty of others have done just what he did and lived to tell the tale, but our Mr. Craig made the lamentable mistake of choosing a day with rain in the forecast." He paused to take a sip of his tea and noted absently that Molly made an excellent listener. She was watching him with rapt attention and obvious curiosity but made no move to interrupt or ask questions. "Sadly for Mr. Craig, the Shard was designed with certain features worked into the design to make it more appealing to the green community that protested its being built in the first place - in particular a channel that directs rain runoff down into a reservoir inside the building. It's a reserve water supply - keeps the fountains filled, waters the grass, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, Reggie tethered his safety rope just below the spillover for the channel. It didn't take much of a storm for the runoff to turn into an extended torrent of water not unlike a waterfall. He would have had no way of getting out from underneath it."

"He unhooked his safety harness trying to get away," Molly said, comprehending. "That's why he fell."

Sherlock nodded, pleased that she had grasped the facts so readily. "Yes, obviously. He didn't quite work his way free though. He was already dead by the time the pressure of the water knocked his body loose of the harness."

"Poor man," she said. Her face was drawn in projected sympathy. "It seems such a shame for someone to die so pointlessly, and in such a random accident."

"Oh, it was no accident," he said, taking another sip of his tea. "It was definitely murder. They're not likely to get him on anything more than negligent homicide, but Reggie's 'best mate', Oliver Northwood, recently of the Shard's environmental planning council, was the one who showed him how to get in and where to tether his safety cables. Even more interestingly, Mrs. Craig informed us that Oliver was adamant that Reggie do his climb that night, citing his own ability to get him past security as the reason. _Which_ could be coincidental, but highly unlikely, given the weather service's near certainty of an overnight storm on that particular evening, and Oliver's certain knowledge of the spillover."

"Well, that's...unexpected." Molly blinked. "Still, good show working it all out." She gave an awkward little laugh and then buried her face in her mug.

He tilted his head to the side and gave her an appraising look. It was hard to tell if the flush on her cheeks was from the warmth of the tea or embarrassment. He couldn't think of anything that should have caused her to feel embarrassed, but then he had never entirely understood how Molly's mind worked. At times, she could be such an easy read, and then at others she was perfectly opaque. She had always been such an odd mixture of seemingly disparate qualities.

She looked absurdly childlike just now, sitting in the fussy chair with her hair trailing across her shoulder. He felt a peculiar sensation in his chest as he regarded her that made it difficult for him to swallow his last mouthful of tea.

He wondered suddenly why he was there. What had compelled him to walk miles across town to bring this news to her doorstep? He could have just as easily dropped into the morgue in the morning to tell her about the case, or indeed, not told her about it at all. She read John's blog, or at least she said she did. She could have found all the pertinent details there, if she were interested.

He set his mug down abruptly and got to his feet, frowning. This was insupportable. What was he thinking?

She blinked up at him, the overhead light reflecting circles back at him from the surface of her glasses. "Sherlock?" Her nose was wrinkled in confusion.

He looked down at her, and a rush of heat tore through him. His ability to recall detail was extraordinary. Sorted, organized and thorough - facts, images, sensations - unadulterated memory, easily accessed, flawlessly remembered.

And he remembered. He remembered exactly the feel of her lips, warm and willing beneath his own, the soft exhalation of her breath against his skin, the sound of her gasp when he moved against her, the scent of her shampoo, soap and skin mingling with the raw musk of her arousal.

His heart thundered in his chest and his breath came short. He tore his gaze away from Molly with almost painful effort.

Too long. He had been away too long. London, his friends, his old life, Molly - they had begun to take on an almost mythical quality in his memory. He had missed them, longed for them - for the ordinary life they had represented, for the world he wanted to return to - their world, her world.

She had been the one tie to his old life that he had carried with him, the link he had left in place to pull him back after the hunt was over, when the game was at its close. She was the beacon he sought on the other side of the mission. He had known that when he saw her again, it would mean success, a measure of peace, and the knowledge that it was time to get back on with his life.

That's all it was. It was nothing more than visceral physicality resulting from the intellectual investment of two years of build-up. That was all it was; it had to be.

He needed to leave. He needed to turn away from shy, sweet, sleepy Molly Hooper, who sat there in her ages-old dressing gown, her glasses sliding down the bridge of her crinkled nose, and go home.

But what he wanted was to reach out to her. He wanted to bury his fingers in her hair, his tongue in her mouth, his cock in her warm, wet heat. Wanted to lose himself in her arms, in her body, in the soft sounds she would make when he tasted her, when he moved inside her, when he - God, no!

With something like a snarl, he turned and headed determinedly for the door. He willed his mind still, prayed for the images to recede, for the desire to ease, for the desperate _want_ to subside.

"Sherlock, what's wrong?" Molly's voice was alarmed.

He couldn't concern himself with that right now. He needed to get out, needed to get away, needed to -

A small, tentative hand touched his arm as he reached for the door. He closed his eyes and shuddered. He'd been so close.

Breathing heavily, he turned on her, quickly, startling her, making her jump backwards.

Good. It was good for her to back away. But it wasn't enough. It was too late. Was it too late? His body thought so, clearly.

Molly's eyes were wide, her face pale in the light. She looked frightened, and some malicious place in his mind wallowed in her fear. Let her fear him. Let him terrify her like she was terrifying him. He had backed her into the wall without realizing he was doing it. He towered over her, crowding her with his body, pinning her to the wall with his gaze as easily and firmly as if he held her in place with his hands.

Once he had told her that he needed her, and he had - he had needed her help, her expertise, her willingness to keep his secrets. Now he just needed _her_.

With hands that trembled, from what emotion he couldn't say, he reached up and brushed his thumb gently across her lower lip. Her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing ratcheted up to match his own laboured breaths.

Her chin tilted up and he bent towards her, intent on her parted lips.  
And then he stopped.

He hovered over her mouth for a long moment, shaking as he fought against his own weakness. Molly opened her eyes, and he saw himself there in the clear, whisky-colored depths of her gaze, a fool.

With a desperate effort, he clamped a steel hand over his emotions - useless, costly things - and turned away without a word.

He was out of her door, down the stairs, and striding across the pavement in less time than it had taken him to get away from the bomb.

* * *

A/N: Ah, yes, _there's_ that sexual tension again! I wondered where it had got off to:) Poor Molly! Will that man ever get his act together?

My thanks to all of you that brighten my day with your reviews and PMs. I adore writing this story and I am so grateful that you're taking a few minutes of your time each week to live in my little universe. It's good to have you here.

All the usual bowing and scraping to Katie F and allofmyheart for taking time out of their busy lives to help shove me onward to the finish line in grammatically correct and Britishified style. This story wouldn't make it without their help. Y'all are the wine beneath my wings (no, that is not a typo. I said wine and I MEANT wine:)


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Molly slid to the floor after Sherlock's abrupt departure, breathing heavily, not bothering to check the tears that streaked down her face. She felt foolish and embarrassed, and on top of all that, she was angry.

Why did she keep letting him treat her this way? After all the years of insult and offense, of backhanded compliments and outright mistreatment, why couldn't she just tell him to bugger off? Why, _why_ did she keep inviting him back to destroy her?

She'd been a bit mad for Sherlock since the day she had met him during her second week at Bart's nearly five years before. He'd been overbearing, supercilious and rude, but he'd also been breathtaking and brilliant and he hadn't looked down his nose at her, or treated her like a little girl who got lost on her way to a nursing degree. He didn't care that she was young, he didn't care that she was a woman in a male-dominated field, and he really didn't care why she had decided to become a pathologist rather than something more socially acceptable. All he cared about was that she was clever, good at her job, and willing to either help him or get out of his way.

He'd come bashing through the doors into the morgue in the middle of the morning on her third Monday at Bart's. His eyes were intent on his phone, and he hadn't even bothered to spare her a glance before he had started spitting out directions in such rapid fire staccato that she hadn't been able to follow it all. She had blinked at the tall, dark-haired apparition, a bit stunned as she hovered over what was only the third solo autopsy of her professional career.

When the litany finally ended, he had at last looked up and then frowned, seeming extremely displeased to see her there.

She had taken a deep breath and mentally squared her shoulders, waiting for the same conversation she'd been having with every new person she met at hospital for the past fortnight. Yes, I_she_/I was the new pathologist, yes, she had graduated early, but no she was not still an infant. She was terribly qualified, had passed all her exams with flying colors and was quite certain she hadn't taken a wrong turn somewhere, thank you very much.

None of that had ended up being necessary because he had simply barked, "Where is Dr. Berryman?"

"Um, Dr. Berryman retired last month. I - I'm the new pathologist...um, hello." She had raised her hands as if to sketch a short wave at him, then realized that she was still holding a rather cirrhosed liver. Feeling awkward and off-balance, a sensation she was far too familiar with, she had at least managed to kick her brain back into gear sufficiently to complete her initial task and set it carefully on the scale. She watched him out of the corner of her eye while she carried on working, entirely unsure of what to say to him. He clearly belonged, or thought he belonged, down here in the bowels of the hospital, but he also didn't seem like any doctor or tech she had ever met.

Without a word, he had immediately gone back to texting furiously on his phone, his brow furrowed into dramatic lines like a storm front passing across his forehead.

He was an unusual-looking man with high cheekbones and a long angular face that shouldn't have been, but somehow was, stunningly beautiful. He was tall and lean with the wiry build of a long-distance runner and a mop of curly dark hair that she immediately itched to bury her hands in. He had the fairest complexion she had ever seen on a man, and even from across the room his eyes were heart-stopping.

And then he had looked back up at her with equal parts puzzlement and irritation. "Well? Just because you aren't Dr. Berryman doesn't mean I don't need those tissue samples."

"Sorry, what?"

"Yes, I get it, you're new," he said, with obvious impatience, speaking in that same rapid, hard to follow patter. "But you're clearly bright - first in your class, landed a prestigious job straight out of uni - on your merits, no connections - worked hard your whole life to get the same respect as your more mature peers. I know you're not completely stupid. So stop acting like you are."

She recoiled as if he'd slapped her. "Wha - "

He flapped a hand at her dismissively. "Don't get hung up on it. Just about everyone that works here is stupid."

She let that go without comment. "How did you know all that about me?" she demanded instead. "Who are you?"

"My name is Sherlock Holmes," he said, his attention already refocused on his phone. "I didn't _know_ all that about you. I saw, I looked, I observed. You would be amazed at what you can learn about someone if you bother to pay the slightest bit of attention to them."

"The very slightest," she said, under her breath at the top of his head.

"What's that?" He glanced up at her again and his mouth twisted into a smirk. "You think I'm not paying attention to you - is that it? You're wrong about that." He stuck his phone in his pocket and crossed his arms, leaning one hip against that work table as if settling in for a good natter. "How did I know all that about you, Dr. Molly Hooper," he began, arching one smug eyebrow. "You're young, at least two years younger than the average pathologist taking up a post, which means you started university very young. Nobody in your specialty takes a seventeen year old very seriously when they start their further training, especially a woman. Misogynistic maybe, but there you have it - too many logistical nightmares. Well then, could be good connections, right? No. You don't have connections. You come from a working class background. First in your family to attend university at all if I'm right, and I nearly always am. Good connections means money and you don't know much at all about that. You dress off the peg, resole your shoes and get your hair cut at the cheapest hairdressers. You're thrifty - a lifetime habit. So, no - no connections of that sort. Your hospital took you because they could hardly turn down the student that came first in her class, could they? You didn't do your specialty training here at Bart's, and I know that quite simply because I would have met you before now, but the fact that you are here now - employed as a pathologist at one of the country's top hospitals - means that you worked harder and longer hours than any of your classmates to get taken seriously, and, inadvertently, impressed the hell out of the appointments committee with your intelligence and work ethic. Now, if I could just get you to be slightly more cooperative and get me the Harcourt tissue samples, then we'd be well on our way to a spectacular working relationship."

She had gawped unbecomingly at him for a solid minute before she'd been able to get her brain back in working order. In the end, she'd gone and fetched him the tissue samples and watched him disappear into the lab across the hall without a backwards glance her way.

Within the first five minutes she'd known that he was a lost cause and within ten that she was going to end up hopelessly in love with him anyway.

And now, here she sat, five years later, curled into an unhappy ball on her sitting room floor, wishing she'd never met the bastard. She pulled her knees into her chest as if she could contain the hurt that way.

It had never mattered before that he wasn't interested in her. She had never really expected him to return her regard. What on earth would be the inducement? She wasn't nearly as intelligent as he was, wasn't beautiful in any sense of the word and could barely string two sentences together in his presence without making an utter fool of herself. She had been content, happy even, to consider him her friend. Now she didn't know what he was, and that was, somehow, more painful than thinking - knowing - that her feelings for him would always go unrequited.

Something had changed in Sherlock while he was away. She didn't know exactly what, and she certainly couldn't hazard a guess as to the cause, but he seemed more human and less like the disconnected and indifferent loner that he had been before. She suspected it was temporary, and that he was merely adjusting to being back in his own skin after so long, but the dispassionate intellect that he used as his shield against the world had slipped. To her surprise, and no doubt his own, lurking beneath was a raw sort of tenderness, like the missing scales on a dragon's belly. In time, she was sure he would find his footing again and things would be much as they always had been, but how long that might take and how much damage he might do in the meantime was anybody's guess, least of all hers. She was in no position to be objective.

She had tried. God knows she had tried to divorce herself from the situation. Hadn't she been the one to keep them from making an enormous mistake the last time? It had been like carving part of her heart out with a garden trowel to walk away from him that night, but she had done it because she cared about him and because she didn't want to become something that he regretted. But she wasn't a machine and she couldn't push him away forever - though clearly that wasn't an issue the way she had feared it might be. When push came to shove, he had proved that he was perfectly capable of pulling away entirely on his own, just not before wringing her out completely.

Of course she was angry with him. He had come to her flat in the middle of the night with God only knew what initial intention, but then he had taken pains to impress her, to _show off_ for her, and, out of nowhere, like the flipping of a switch, he had turned into a predatory animal, stalking her across her sitting room, exuding such powerful sexuality that her body had reacted without him ever having to touch her. It made the idea of actually having sex with Sherlock Holmes sound positively terrifying. And then - nothing. Not a word, not an explanation, not so much as a by-your-leave, and he was gone again. It wasn't the first time he had turned her on her head, nor was it the first time she had been angry with him, but it was probably the first time she had been even more furious with herself than with him.

She shuddered, miserable in a tear-stained heap on the floor of her own flat. She had no one but herself to blame. He couldn't make her feel like this if she didn't let him. And she kept letting him. For five years she had given Sherlock the keys to her emotions without expecting anything in return, not even having her heart left in one piece. God, she was a fool. What had she expected?

With a weary sigh, she climbed to her feet and went into the bathroom to wash her face.

In the mirror, a stranger with puffy eyes and a reddened nose looked back at her with contempt. So much power to give away to someone who did nothing to deserve it in the first place.

She was tired and sad and had to get up for work in less than four hours, but she didn't think she was going to be able to get anymore sleep tonight, much as she was desperate for the relief of unconsciousness. Her mind whirled and her heart hurt, and somewhere deep in her subconscious, she was starting to realize something that she should have picked up on nearly five years ago.

Sherlock Holmes was astonishing and brilliant and beautiful, but he was also the most self-absorbed, miserable bastard to have ever walked the earth. It was her misfortune that she had fallen in love with him - or at least, the idealized version of him that she had invented for herself. But she didn't have to let it define her. It was up to her to let his changeable moods and scathing words get under her skin or not.

It was time for her to choose not.

* * *

A/N: It's a bit of a short chapter this week. Our Molly is having a bit of a rough time of it, and Sherlock is being very... well, Sherlock.

Thanks again for all the wonderful comments and reviews. I really enjoy hearing from you guys! I'm going to be out of commission for the next week or so, which hopefully won't affect either my writing or my posting schedule, but if it does and I miss next week's posting day, I'll update as soon as I can.

Katie F and allofmyheart are, as ever, responsible for making my little corner of the Sherlollyverse readable. Thanks be to you guys liek whoa. And please allow me to offer up an extra special thanks to allofmyheart's pathologist friend who helped me with the details about Molly's schooling.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Sherlock wondered, if he asked nicely and perhaps smiled a bit, if he couldn't get Mary to go down to the shop for him. They were out of biscuits and he was peckish, but he needed to be present in the flat for at least the next three hours to ensure that none of the tightly sealed cans in the kitchen sink exploded. Perhaps if he mentioned the possibility of exploding cans to her -

"Mary," he began, pulling out his most winning smile, the one that always worked when he used it on Mrs. Hudson or Molly.

"No, Sherlock," Mary Morstan said without looking up from her magazine. She was sitting cross-legged in John's usual chair, her blonde hair twisted up on the back of her head. Her glasses sat perched on her nose as she paged through some kind of periodical with ridiculously flouncy white skirts and improbably happy-looking couples splashed across the cover.

He slumped back into his seat and scowled across the room at her. She ignored him.

John's fiancée had been something of a surprise, both in her existence as well as her character. For one thing, he was able to consistently remember her name. That in itself was astonishing enough. The parade of interchangeable women that John had ploughed through prior to her were all nameless, faceless features - the brunette, the one with the glasses, the one with the horrible laugh, the lesbian - that last one had been less of a problem for John than Sherlock had expected. Mary had been Mary since the moment he had met her, roughly two minutes after her husband-to-be had laid him out flat on the floor at The Faircot. Not only that, but Sherlock found that he could actually stand her, in short doses at least. She was intelligent and direct and, possibly, as protective of John as Sherlock was himself.

While he was still working on picking himself up off the tastefully expensive, not to mention, hard marble tile floor that John had seen fit to introduce him to, Mary had arrived at the restaurant. She had recovered from the unexpected shock of meeting her fiancé's deceased former flatmate with surprising speed and then taken the whole situation neatly in hand. She had charmed the waiter, placated the manager and sweet-talked her way into a pair of ice packs. She was much more gentle in the act of icing John's swollen hand than she was in seeing to Sherlock's own rapidly darkening black eye, he had noted somewhat bitterly.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holmes," she had said with only a trace of sarcasm in her voice. She dropped to one knee next to him, disregarding her expensive dress and extending the ice pack like a peace offering.

"Ms. Morstan," he said with a nod of thanks, accepting what he surmised was intended as an olive branch. He winced as he set the cold pack against the swelling flesh around his eye.

"I mean it, too," she said, conversationally. She rested her wrists on her knees and looked down at him. "It really is a pleasure to meet you. John has told me all sorts of wonderful things about you, some of which, I am sure, are actually true." She looked up a John with soft eyes and a warm smile. "I'm glad he has you back. I know it means the world to him." She looked back at Sherlock and her expression changed temperature. "But Mr. Holmes, please let me assure you that if you ever do anything like that to him again, I will see to it personally that you remain dead." She offered him a hand up and, uncharacteristically, he accepted it.

"The pleasure is mine, Ms. Morstan," he assured her, as he stood, brushing off his lapels and adjusting the sleeves of his jacket. He inclined his head. "Call me Sherlock, please."

A broad smile spread across her face. "Certainly. And you must call me Mary, of course. After all, we're almost going to be family.

John looked back and forth between them. "Unbelievable," he said with a shake of his head.

In the end, they had retired back to Baker Street for their dinner rather than indulging the other Faircot patrons' curiosity. Mary had worked surprising magic with the contents of the cupboards. She produced an excellent dinner and an even more excellent bottle of wine, which Sherlock presumed had been set aside for a special occasion, given how dear it must have been. He was not insensible of the intended sentiment, though he wondered why she bothered given that he rarely drank, and never took wine.

After dinner, she had examined John's bruised knuckles as well as the object on which they had been bruised - Sherlock's cheekbone - and pronounced everything officially sound and unbroken. Then she had prescribed paracetamol all around, given her fiancé a quick kiss, and gone to bed, leaving Sherlock Holmes and John Watson to figure the rest of their problems out on their own.

Sherlock had decided then that, if John was going to insist on encumbering himself with a wife, he would, at least, be grateful that he had chosen a useful one.

He wished she'd be a little more useful just now, however. He really could do with at packet of biscuits, and it didn't look at all like she had any intention of going anywhere anytime soon.

Out of sheer ennui - or perhaps in retaliation, he wasn't sure - he launched himself across the room and took up his violin with a flourish. He glanced at Mary out of the corner of his eye as he notched the instrument under his chin and drew a long, low, mournful note out across the strings.

She turned a page in her magazine but still didn't look up. He frowned at her. Why was she still here? Why didn't she go back to her own flat? John wouldn't be home from his shift with DMS for several hours yet and he was stuck in the flat until the cans didn't explode. It was irritating having someone underfoot who refused to pay him the slightest bit of attention.

He turned toward the window and adjusted his hold, blocking Mary out of his mind altogether.

Initially, he had only planned to pick out a few notes in order to chase her into John's room, if not back to her own flat, but it felt good to have the bow in his hand and to breathe in the sharp scent of fresh rosin. He closed his eyes and pictured notes scattered across crisp, white staff paper like a photo negative of the stars, waiting to be translated into warm, rich sound by his bow. He flexed his arm, and the opening notes of Kreisler's Praeludium and Allegro filled the room.

The violin was the first thing John had handed him when he walked back into the flat again as a permanent resident. "I cleaned out some things," he said, unable to meet Sherlock's eyes, "some of your things. But this, - I couldn't seem to get rid of it." He gave a short laugh and shrugged, jamming his hands into his jeans pockets. "I thought maybe I'd give it to Mycroft eventually, or something. I don't know. Not sure why I'm giving the damn thing back to you, really - it's probably some latent form of masochism. God knows I didn't miss the screeching at all hours."

Wordlessly, Sherlock had set the case on the table and opened it, lifting the violin carefully from its velvet-lined nest, going back in his mind for the way it should feel in his hands. After two years of not using his fingers for anything finer than doing up the buttons on his shirt, they felt awkward and clumsy on the fingerboard. But then, once he held it, high and firm, his memory served him well, and the way of it came back to him in a flood. When he finally drew the bow gently across the strings, he felt the fullness of the music permeate the empty spaces between his atoms, and the remnants of Joseph Bell passed forever into history as Sherlock Holmes took the first breath of his rebirth.

He played with his eyes closed now, gliding through the complex arpeggios, relishing the warmth of the late afternoon sun that poured in through the window and the familiar feel of his muscles shifting as he moved the bow.

The concentration and focus required of the instrument checked the speed of his usual rapid-fire reasoning and helped him organize and categorize his thoughts. He pulled them out of the maelstrom and examined them individually - sorting, filing or discarding as was warranted - until all the pertinent facts were accounted for. It was a tool he used frequently in the midst of a challenging case.

It was not a case that vied for his attention today, however. Not for the first time since his return, his mind was settled firmly on the problem of Molly Hooper.

And she was a problem now. He had never thought of her as such before he went away. In fact, back then, he had hardly thought of her at all. She had been useful, cooperative and accommodating for the most part, and he had appreciated her presence at Barts for all those reasons. Disconnected as he knew everyone thought him in regards to human behaviour, he had not been insensible of her apparent interest in him. It had worked in his favour on more than one occasion, and he had felt no compunction in exploiting it to get what he wanted. He considered her something of a co-worker or a colleague, an acquaintance perhaps; he never would have thought to call her friend. And now? Now he thought about her far too much.

Was this sentiment? The idea made him frown. He didn't do emotional entanglements. He never had. They were messy and complicated, with little advantage to be found on either side. Sentiment was a distracting weakness that he neither needed nor wanted in his life.

Sherlock did not believe in the concept of romantic love. It was nothing more than a temporary by-product of chemical evolution - a convenient fiction created by humankind to justify the need for sexual fidelity, and nothing more. Love was not real, and it certainly did not last. He had never understood the desperate desire everyone seemed to have to tie themselves indelibly to another person, to willingly hand power over into the hands of someone who could not possibly resist the urge to abuse it. The majority of all violent crimes were perpetrated against someone that the attacker would have claimed to love. What he found even more bewildering was how frequently the abused, assuming that they managed to survive, would take their abuser back with open and unguarded arms. Love was a foolish impediment.

He understood the need for sexual release, but that was a physiological imperative unrelated to the psychological desire for interpersonal relationships. He wasn't as inhuman as people tended to think; he was simply able to separate the two and distance himself from both. When his body demanded release, he gratified himself just as any other man would, but it was always a purely physical experience, free of any unnecessary emotional association - or, at least, it always had been before.

During the extended months away from England, away from his former life, when the need for release had clawed at him and he had reached for himself in the dark, he had been unable to resist the images that ghosted through his mind of sweet brown eyes and a curtain of dark hair, of her mouth, of the smooth curve of her pale throat and then, with his heart pounding and his breathing loud in his ears, he had spilled himself, gasping, with the taste of her name on his lips.

So yes, Molly Hooper was a problem in need of a solution, and soon. He did not like having to avoid the lab at Bart's, but he could not afford another incident like the one in her flat the previous week. He needed separation from her, time to purge whatever this preoccupation was with the shy pathologist.

The final notes of the Allegro faded from the room, and Sherlock lowered the violin to the sound of slow applause.

He turned in surprise to discover that Mary had gone, and instead, Mycroft stood across the room, watching him.

"Home is the sailor, home from the sea and the hunter home from the hill," his brother quoted softly, with a half smile that did not quite reach his eyes. "And the consulting detective home from the shadowlands, apparently." He cocked his head to the side for a long moment as if waiting for Sherlock to reply. He didn't. "Welcome home, little brother. I cannot tell you how pleased I was to read about your resurrection in the Post last week."

"You're looking well, Mycroft," Sherlock said. "The extra weight suits you." He took up a cloth from the case and began industriously wiping down the wood beneath the violin strings. He had been putting off seeing his brother for over a month, and he wasn't sure he was in the mood for a reunion even now, possibly ever.

Mycroft's eyes tightened. "It would have been decent of you to let me know that you were still alive, you know. Poor Mummy has been so distraught."

Sherlock raised a disbelieving brow. "Oh, did you not have your lackeys report back to you in all that time? That's a bit of oversight on your part, brother. I would have thought you'd have them better trained than that."

There was a flicker behind his elder brother's gaze. "We knew you had survived the fall from Barts, of course," he said. "But the explosion in Ashgabat, well, let's just say that was less of a certainty."

Sherlock frowned. He'd known someone was keeping an eye on him periodically during his sojourn in Turkmenistan, but the man had been acceptably unobtrusive, so he had, for the most part, simply ignored him. He wondered that one of Mycroft's agents wouldn't have been able to pick up his trail again after the bomb went off at his apartment. He wouldn't have been difficult to trace unless - "You lost him."

Mycroft inclined his head. "Indeed. My man was following a little too closely behind Joseph Bell during his final hours in Turkmenistan. Mr. Bell survived the bomb; Archie Smith did not."

Sherlock frowned. "I didn't need a babysitter, Mycroft."

"No doubt Archie's family would agree with you," he said mildly and then shrugged. "It is no matter. He was aware of the risks, as they all are. Excellent death benefits, commendation for loss of life in the service of the queen - the boy will have good reason to be proud of his father."

"The boy will _think_ he has good reason to be proud of his father, you mean," Sherlock corrected. He slotted the violin and bow back into the case and closed the lid in disgust. Mycroft's highhanded manner had always rankled; now it positively grated.

"It's much the same thing, isn't it?" Mycroft arched a knowing brow at his brother. "Perception is formed on the basis of expectation, after all. The boy - Charles is his name - the boy and his mother expect to hear that their dearly departed is a hero. Would you prefer they be told the truth? That their husband and father lost his life on a minor mission regarding an insignificant personage of no great import to the Nation? True though it may be, it would be no kindness, Sherlock, nor would it make their burden any easier to bear."

"So truth is only important when it is useful or kind?" he said, challenge in his tone.

"Better a beautiful lie than an ugly truth, Sherlock, at least in cases like this."

"Ignorance is bliss, you mean," Sherlock said, disdain dripping from his words. "If I thought for a second that you actually ascribed to that philosophy, I'd throw you out of here for good."

"Goodness, we wouldn't want _that_." Mycroft's eyes widened in mock alarm. "I think you know quite well what my personal standing is on the matter. But given my position, I do not have the luxury of grounding all of my official actions in my own bias. I have a responsibility on, say, those lamentable occasions when I must inform a newly-made widow of the alteration in her marital status."

"Do you expect me to feel guilty?" This wasn't the first time they had played this game. His brother was extraordinarily well-versed in the psychology of eliciting a desired response. He wasn't above moving on to other, more physically convincing avenues of coercion, but he did like to at least attempt his own personal brand of witchcraft first.

"Hardly." Mycroft smiled in vague amusement. "Just as no one expects to extract water from a stone, no one expects to get any sort of feeling whatsoever out of Sherlock Holmes, no matter how hard you might squeeze."

Sherlock said nothing. He would not rise to his brother's inelegant attempt at baiting him. He would not point out the obvious, would not rail against him for his role in Jim Moriarty's final machinations. It didn't matter that Mycroft had been the one to arm Moriarty - that he had handed Sherlock's life to a madman like some kind of twisted bedtime story in exchange for useless information. In the grand scheme of things, it didn't even matter that Mycroft had given the names - John Watson, Martha Hudson, Greg Lestrade - to a certifiably insane criminal mastermind hell-bent on Sherlock's downfall. It didn't matter because of the one name that Mycroft hadn't known to tell him. He didn't know about Molly, and that one tiny little secret had been enough to save them all.

"Well," Mycroft said, standing and brushing off the lapels of his suit. He reached for his umbrella. "I thought I should address your return for myself since you clearly had no intentions of coming to see me - "

"What about you, brother dear?" Sherlock asked suddenly. "Do you feel guilty?" He knew the answer, knew exactly what degree of base sentimentality Mycroft struggled against, but he was not above the childish desire to make him acknowledge his failings out loud.

"Yes, of course." He answered immediately, his voice unexpectedly soft. "I nearly always do." He met his Sherlock's eyes with his own. "Quite honestly, I envy you your ability to distance yourself so completely from your emotions."

"Is that caring, brother?" Sherlock sneered.

"Yes, it is. I'm afraid I simply find myself incapable of turning it off the way you do. Caring may be a disadvantage, but it is also terribly human." He turned towards the door and then stopped. "Oh, I nearly forgot." He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a thick white envelope. "You are officially in the land of the living once more. All of your documents are here. Feel free to do with this life just what you did with the last one." He dropped it on the chair.

"Do you think I would be more effective if I cared, Mycroft?" Sherlock asked. "Do you honestly think it would help? Because I don't."

"That depends on what you want to be effective at. As a consulting detective? No, I don't think it would help at all. As a man?" He looked back, appraising his brother thoughtfully. "Yes. Yes, then I think it would help quite a bit. Goodbye, Sherlock. I'll pass on your regards to Mummy. You really should consider visiting her sometime soon. She does worry about you, you know."

* * *

A/N: I know you're dying to see our pathologist and her consulting detective together again - next chapter, I promise! And it really was time for Mycroft to put in an appearance, unwelcome as his brother might find it.

My deepest thanks to all of you who take the time to comment or message me. I apologize for not getting back to anyone this week. I'll catch up eventually, I promise. At the risk of a massive over-share - I had surgery this week and there were complications that set me back a bit. I'll be fine, it's just going to take a little longer than anticipated. Feel free to send me a get-well Benedict Cumberbatch if the mood so takes you.

Lollipops and unicorns to Katie F and allofmyheart for their continued betaliciousness and general, overall awesomeness.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

The hospital cafeteria was nearly deserted at this hour. The food service staff was industriously cleaning and preparing for the next meal in the back of the kitchen. The din of their relaxed chatter and the metallic clanging of serving pans were all distant background noise, and so familiar that Molly didn't hear it anymore. She preferred to take her breaks during the lulls like this when she was least likely to have to make conversation or share a table with anyone.

She sat in a secluded corner, stirring her coffee absently. She had added too much sugar and it was sweeter than she liked, but she couldn't seem to muster enough enthusiasm to walk back over to the coffee machine to doctor it back into palatability.

Howard and Sanjay were down in the morgue cataloging their only new case for the afternoon. It was another suspected suicide the Yard had fished out of the Thames that morning and she was perfectly contented letting them take this one while she ran tissue samples in the lab. Someone had to do all the glamorous work.

She checked her watch and took a sip of coffee, grimacing at the taste. There was still a good half an hour or better left before she had any hope of her tests being completed. She leaned on her elbow, her chin propped in her hand and watched the traffic flow past outside the window.

Everyone outside seemed intent and in a hurry. They all had somewhere to be, or something to do, or someone waiting for them on the other end. She quirked her lips and sighed, and then shook her head, clearing away the sense of melancholy that would have settled over her if she let it. No more of that nonsense, thank you. There was no reason she had to look out on the world as if all the interesting things were happening to someone else, was there? She deserved her chance at happiness and fulfillment just as much as the next person. If she was tired of being lonely on the weekends, then it was up to her to push herself out of her comfort zone and change things up.

She glanced around the practically empty cafeteria and then smiled wryly to herself. The first thing she was going to have to do was stop being such a recluse. Morbid Molly who worked down in the depths of the hospital morgue and took all of her meals alone was destined to stay just so - alone.

Now that Sherlock was back and the brief upset his reappearance had caused was fading back into the usual routine for everyone, she saw what she had not been willing to see before - that she had put her life on hold for him. He hadn't asked her to and she knew he certainly hadn't expected it, but she had done it, nonetheless. For all those months that he had been on the other side of the world, she had felt absurdly connected to him, like she was the tether to his old life and was responsible for holding his place. Whether she would have ever admitted it to herself then or not, she realized now that she had been waiting to move on with her life until he came back. Had she thought something might happen between them when he was once again residing at Baker Street? She honestly couldn't say. Surely she had not allowed herself to consciously consider it an actual possibility. The thought made her wince. Lord, but she was a pathetic creature.

IEnough foolish introspection/I, she thought to herself. She had already made a decision, hadn't she? There was no reason to continue to berate herself for things she had done, or not done, in the past. She was ready to move past the complicated, frustrating, infuriating problem of Sherlock Holmes.

"Um, hi. It's Molly, right? Molly Hooper?"

She looked up in surprise to see a vaguely familiar figure standing hesitantly by her table with a cup of coffee clasped in his hands. He was about her own age with wide blue eyes and black spectacle frames. He had dirty-blonde hair that had started the inexorable middle-aged retreat toward the back of his head, but it was short and neatly trimmed. "What? Oh, I'm me - I mean, I'm Molly." She huffed a little and then laughed. "Yes." She enunciated carefully. "It's Molly."

He smiled. "I'm David Masters. We met at Robbie and Gina's dinner party last month?" He tilted the sentence up at the end, making it a question.

"Yes, of course," she said, narrowing her eyes in vague recollection. And it suddenly fell into place who he was and, most likely, why he was here now. Gina was the consummate match maker. She'd been telling Molly for ages that she had someone from work who she'd like to pair her up with. "Right, yes, I remember. Hello."

"Oh, good. I made an impression then." He smiled and hesitated for a beat. "Do you mind if I - ?" He gestured to the seat across from her with his eyebrows raised in query.

"Yeah, of course, please do." She was smiling at him, but all her usual social anxieties flared violently and immediately to life, and she sighed inwardly. Oh, that's right; _this_ was why she never met anyone new. It was such a painful process, this stumbling bit during the those first moments when you tried the other person on for size before either putting them back in the box and walking away, or walking around in them a bit and _then_ putting them back in the box and walking away. Few and far between were the ones that she wanted to wear out of the shop. Sherlock's face popped into her head, but she batted it irritably away and forced herself to focus on the keen face of the man across the table from her.

"Um, so, how do you know Robb and Gina?" she asked, casting around in her head for something to talk to him about just to keep the long silence from settling over them too quickly.

"I'm in Accounts Payable with Gina," he said, spinning his cup in his hands. He bit his nails, she noticed. "And just so you know, it's not nearly as exciting in real life as it is in the movies."

She managed an appreciative chuckle. "Well, I work in the morgue all day. And you know what they say about that."

He wrinkled his brow in curiosity and took a sip of his coffee. "No, what's that?"

She grinned. "Everybody's dying to get in."

He blinked and she felt stupid. "Oh, right," he said, nodding too hard with a forced smile. "That's funny."

She shifted in her seat and glanced out the window. "Well, you know, gallows humor and all that. You get kind of inured to it after a while." Well this was going smashingly. Maybe it was time to consider the possibility that it wasn't her fixation on Sherlock Holmes that had kept her from any real sort of romantic life for all these years, but rather her complete inability to function like a normal human being around other normal human beings.

"Yeah, yeah, I get that," David was saying. He leaned his elbows on the table, regarding her seriously. "It must be tough to have to deal with death all the time."

"Well, you know." She buried her face in her coffee cup, not caring now that it was too sweet. Any excuse to keep from having to have this conversation. She'd be lying if she agreed with him, but she'd look downright ghoulish if she told him, quite honestly, that it didn't bother her in the slightest. Death was death. It was just as much a part of living as being born, and no one ever got to do one without the other. But no one wanted to hear that. She knew most people expected her to be sober and solemn and to look on her job in the same way as a funeral home director, but it wasn't the same, not at all. She solved mysteries, and she was damn good at it, too. And sometimes she did it to the tune of her old Spice Girls CDs. It wasn't that she was disrespectful of the deceased. She just knew, better than most, that all of the important bits of the person's life had already happened long before the body came to her morgue.

"So, listen, Molly - " David was spinning his coffee cup again, studiously avoiding her eyes. "There's this great digital media exhibition coming up at the Tate next week. Do you think -"

"Molly, I need you."

Startled, she looked up and Sherlock was there, looming over her with his hands buried in his coat pockets. He was addressing her, but glaring daggers at David.

"Hullo, Sherlock," she said, pleased to hear that her voice came out steady and calm even though her stomach was doing cartwheels. She was _not_ going to let him get to her today. She couldn't help it if his proximity set off every nerve-ending in her body, but she didn't have to show it, did she? "This is David Matthews - ."

"Masters," David corrected automatically.

Molly winced. "Of course, sorry. David _Masters_ from Accounts Payable. And this is Sherlock Holmes."

"Good to meet you." David stood and stuck a hand out. Sherlock stared at with a puzzled frown until David flicked a glance at Molly and then let it drop to his side. "I, um, yeah, I've heard of you. You're that private eye, right? The one that came back from the dead?" He laughed.

Sherlock arched an unimpressed eyebrow in David's oblivious direction. "Consulting detective," he said, and then turned back to Molly. "I need a body."

"You do? What for this time?"

"I only need the hands. I'm doing a write-up on post-mortem decomposition of collagen and protein fibres in hyaline cartilage. But I'll take the feet too, if I may. Uh - please."

"So you don't need an actual body, just parts of one?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Just as I said."

"Sorry, Sherlock." She pressed her lips together in a line and shrugged. "Wish I could help you, but the only body we have right now is an unidentified probable suicide so we have to wait for the Yard. Besides, Howard is in charge for this one." She didn't bother elaborating for David's benefit that she was much more likely to be willing to dole out the bits and pieces than her colleague would be. "Do you want me to try to get familial consent afterward?"

He made a displeased sound through his teeth. "No, it will take far too long for all of that." He looked thoughtful and then brightened hopefully. "Are you expecting anymore today?"

"Well, they hardly keep to an appointment, do they?"

"No, unfortunately." He looked so legitimately put out that she wanted to laugh. "The body you have now, is that the one they pulled out of the Thames this morning?"

"That's the one, but I already told you, we have to hold it for the Yard - "

"Yes, yes, I know," he flapped an impatient hand at her. "I believe Lestrade said there had been some scavenger activity. Is there any chance I could take a look while I'm here? I'd like to get some images for the database of bite radiuses that I've begun compiling."

"I should think that's okay. You'll have to clear it with Howard, but as long as you don't try to make off with the poor man's appendages, I'm sure he won't mind." She realized belatedly that this entire conversation was probably a bit much for poor David Masters from Accounts Payable, and, indeed, when she glanced at him, he seemed taken aback by the whole discussion and showing a bit green around the gills, eyeing the milky surface of his coffee with displeasure. Oops.

"Oh, uh, sorry David." She winced. "I just - no, I mean -" She deflated with a long sigh. "Sorry."

"No, no. I'm fine," David said, but his smile flickered. "I should get back to work anyway. Invoices wait for no man, and all that." He stood and collected his coffee cup. "Nice to see you again, Molly." He didn't quite look at Sherlock as he turned away. "Mr. Holmes."

Sherlock merely watched him walk away without a word. As soon as the swinging door into the cafeteria rocked backwards, blocking out the view of David's retreating back, he dropped into the abandoned chair.

She tilted her head and gave him a long look. "You know damn well that we aren't going to start cutting bits off of an unidentified body without a confirmed cause of death. You did that just to annoy him."

"Did I?" He looked honestly puzzled, blue-green eyes wide and guileless, but with him there was no telling whether he was in earnest or not. He was terribly good at pretending to be other than what he was when the situation suited him to do so. She was all the past proof she needed of that.

God, but this man made her life difficult. He excited the most disparate feelings in her, and could take her from one end of the emotional spectrum and straight down to the other with nothing more than a quirk of his lips. She admired him, and she was attracted to him both physically and mentally, but she hated how much power he had over her. She wanted to take that away from him. He hadn't earned it, he didn't deserve it and most importantly, he didn't want it. It was the _how_ of it that eluded her. If she could have simply convinced herself out of this silly crush, she'd have done it years ago and saved herself a whole lot of pain and even more embarrassment.

She looked at him now, sitting across the table and regarding her curiously, all dark and brooding, with glittering feline eyes that looked up at her from beneath his furrowed brow, and she felt her pulse rate speed up in spite of herself. She couldn't help the flashes of memory from that night in her flat when he had pressed her into the mattress with his body, all the heat and hardness of him bearing her down, drowning her in his scent and in the wet, hot slide of his tongue in her mouth.

The expression on Sherlock's face altered suddenly, and she realized with horror that he could read everything she was thinking just as well as if it had been written out on her forehead in permanent marker. Her cheeks flushed, and she closed her eyes. How very par for the course.

"Sherlock, _why_ are you here?" she asked wearily, rubbing a hand across her face. She needed to remind herself that the same sculpted body that had been millimetres away from shagging her into the mattress was the same one that had stalked her across her own sitting room and then stomped out the door without a word. He was simply too complicated and too volatile for words.

"For starters, saving you from a very dull evening with...that person."

"David, she reminded him, scowling. "It's not your place to interfere with my private life, so stop it."

He looked sceptical. "You would rather I said nothing and let him ask you out to that ridiculous exhibition? Do you have any idea how bored you'd have been?"

She had to stop and take a couple of shallow breaths to get her voice back under control before she completely lost it and shouted the house down. "For one thing, _Sherlock_, it just so happens that I actually wanted to see that exhibition, boring or not. For another, I am perfectly capable of saying no if someone asks me to do something that I would rather not do. I am not a child."

"I never said you were," he said. "Would you have?"

The change in direction disoriented her. "Would I have what?"

"Said no to...that person."

"_David_," she hissed. "His name is David."

"I don't care what his name is. Would you have said no?"

She threw her hands up and leaned back in her chair. "I don't know, Sherlock, I really don't. Maybe. Why do you care? He's a perfectly nice man."

"Wrong," he said, the word short and clipped. "Didn't you see his hands? The way he keeps his nails? He's forty-three years old, never been married, and for good reason. He's a borderline narcissist with a severe pornography addiction and mother issues. He is most assuredly _not_ nice.

She grimaced and looked away. If he said it was so, it undoubtedly was, but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of asking him how he knew. He was a terrible show-off and the best - and really only - way she had of annoying him was pretending she wasn't impressed. "You don't think anyone is nice."

"I think you're nice." She blinked at him, but there was nothing in his expression that would indicate that he was mocking her. "You are so confusing, Sherlock," she said, feeling defeated without knowing why.

"Why is that confusing? You're always nice to me." He wrinkled his pale brow, full lips tugging down at the edges.

She sighed. This was going nowhere and she had to get back to work. "So that's the only reason you came up here? To save me from throwing away what little is left of my youth on a narcissistic porn addict?"

"Oh God no. I need you to come down to the morgue and sign out some tissue samples for me. Howard won't do it." He shot up out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box. "And I really do need those hands," he added. "And the feet too, so keep an eye out, would you?" He spun on his heel and headed out toward the door. "Come along, Molly," he called over his shoulder.

She sighed again and sagged in her seat, letting her frustration wash over her for an indulgent moment before she marshaled her forces and shoved it back down where it belonged. Then she stood and collected her half-full coffee cup, dumping it in the bin as she went after Sherlock's rapidly retreating figure.

It was Friday. It had been a very long week, and Molly decided right then and there, that tonight she deserved a drink.

* * *

A/N: Deciding not to let Sherlock Holmes get under your skin anymore is a lot easier than *actually* not letting Sherlock Holmes get under your skin anymore. Molly has her work cut out for her. Also, I do so love a jealous Sherlock:)

Bless you all for your reviews and PMs. And thank you for all the get well notes and encouragement. Y'all make this so much fun!

A great big internet high-five to my rock star betas. Katie is stuck reading every single version of this sucker that I write, not to mention Katiefying it with her Grammar Hammer right before I upload. Allofmyheart reminds me, gently, that despite the overall similarity between our languages, Britain and the US do have quite a lot of cultural differences, and she helps me chisel out the ones that don't work. Trust me when I say this story would be nothing without their help. Love you guys!

Only ONE person noticed my Smaug reference in Chapter 9? And I was so proud of it too...


End file.
